
r 



EMANCIPATION 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 




Glass ^±SS. 



EMANCIPATION: ^^ 



BY 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY E. P. PEABODY, 13 WEST STREET. 
1840. 



EH'i 







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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



The following tract grew almost insensibly out of 
the strong impressions receiv-ed from recent accounts 
of the emancipated British Islands. Joseph John 
Gurney, well known among us as a member and 
minister of the Quaker denomination, was so kind 
as to visit me after his return from the West Indies, 
and then transmitted to me his " Familiar Letters to 
Henry Clay,"* describing a winter in those regions. 
The satisfaction which I felt w^as so great, that I ' 
could not confine it to myself. I began to write, as 
a man begins to talk after hearing good new§. 
Many tht)ughts, connected with the topic, rushed 
successively into my mind ; and gradually, and with 
little labor, this slight work took the form it now 
wears. I am encouraged to hope that it is of some 
litde value from the spontaneousness of its growth. 

This tract was prepared for the press some time 
ago, and should have been published immediately 
after the appearance of Mr. Gurney's letters. But 
I was discouraged by the preoccupation of the minds 
of the whole community with the politics of the day. 
I was obliged to wait for the storm to pass ; and I 
now send it forth in the hope, that some at least 



tucky, describing a Winter in the West Indies. By Joseph John 
Gurney." 



are at leisure to give me a short hearing. Not that 
I expect to be heard very widely. No one knows, 
more than I do, the want of popularity of the sub- 
ject. Multitudes would think it a waste of time to 
give their thoughts to this great question of justice 
and humanity. But still there are not a few to 
whom the truth will be welcome. Such will find, 
that in these pages I am not going again over the 
ground which I have already travelled ; and I hope 
they will feel, that, having begun with " Slavery," 
1 am fitly ending with " Emancipation." 

The latter part of the tract discusses a topic, 
which I have occasionally touched on, but which 
needs a more full exposition, and on which I have 
long wished to communicate my views. The Duties 
of the Free States, in regard to Slavery, need to 
be better understood, and my suggestions I hope 
will be weighed with candor. As I have taken little 
interest for years in the politics of the day, and as 
my hope for the country rests not on any party, but 
solely on our means of education, and on moral and 
religious influences, I ought not to be accused of 
wishing to give a political aspect to the anti-slavery 
cause. I am very unwilling, that it should take the 
form of a struggle for office and power. Still 
it has political relations ; and of these I shall speak 
with perfect freedom. The topic is an exciting 
one ; but as I look at it with perfect calmness, I hope 
I shall not disturb the minds of others. 

November 15, 1840. 



EMANCIPATION 



At length a report of West Indian Emancipation 
has reached us, to which some heed will be given ; 
and it is so cheering, that I should be glad to make 
it more extensively known. We have had, already, 
faithful and affecting accounts of this great social 
revolution ; but coming from men, who bear an un- 
popular name, they have received little attention. 
Here we have the testimony of a man in no way 
connected with American Abolitionists. In his long 
residence among us, Mr. Gurney has rather shun- 
ned this party, whether justly or wisely I do not say. 
The fact is stated, simply to prevent or remove a pre- 
judice from which he ought not to suffer. He came 
to this country on no mission from the enemies of 
slavery in his own land. Nor did he come as so 
many travellers do, to gather or invent materials for 
a marketable book ; but to preach the gospel in obe- 
dience to what he thought " a heavenly call." In 
this character he visited many parts of our land, and 
every where secured esteem as a man, and won no 



6 



small attention to his religious teachings. After 
many labors here, he felt himself charged with a 
divine message to the West Indies. His first object 
in travelling over those islands was to preach ; but 
in his various journies and communications with in- 
dividuals, he naturally opened his eyes and ears to 
the subject, which there engrosses almost every 
thought, and in which his own philanthropy gave 
him special interest. In his " Letters" he furnishes 
us with the details and a few results of his observa- 
tion, interspersed with some personal adventure, and 
with notices of the natural appearances and produc- 
tions of regions so new and striking to an English- 
man. The book has the merit of perfectly answer- 
ing its end, which is not to reason about emancipa- 
tion, but to make the reader a spectator, and to give 
him facts for his own reflection. It is written with 
much ease, simplicity, clearness, and sometimes, 
with beauty. It is especially distinguished by a 
spirit of kindness. It not only expresses a sincere 
Christian philanthropy, but breathes a good humor 
which must disarm even the most prejudiced. 
They who have refused to read anti-slavery produc- 
tions because steeped in gall, will find no bitter 
ingredients here. Not that there is a spirit of com- 
promise or timidity in our author. He is a thor- 
oughly kind-hearted man, and conscientiously be- 
lieves that he can best serve the cause of truth and 



liberty by giving free utterance to his own benig- 
nant spirit. The book has not only the substantial 
merit of fidehty on a subject of immense importance, 
but another claim, which may operate more widely 
in its favor. It is entertaining. It does not give 
us dull and dry wisdom, but the quick, animated 
observations of a man, w^ho saw with his heart as 
well as his eyes, who took a strong interest in what 
he describes. 

That the book is entirely impartial, I do not say. 
This highest merit of a book seems to require more 
than human virtue. To see things precisely as they 
are, with not a shade or coloring from our own pre- 
judices or affections, is the last triumph of self-de- 
nial. The most honest often see what they want to 
see ; and a man, so honored as Mr. Gurney, is very 
apt to be told what he wants to hear. But the 
book bears strong marks of truth. The uprightness 
of the author secures us against important error. 
Let even large deductions be made for his feelings, 
as a quaker, against slavery, for his" sympathy with 
the negro and the negro's friends. After every 
allowance the great truth will come out, that the 
hopes of the most sanguine advocates of Emancipa- 
tion have been realized, if not surpassed, in the 
West Indies. 

Such a book is much needed. There has been 
in this country a backwardness, almost an unwilling- 



8 



ness, to believe good reports from the West Indies. 
Not a few have desired to hear evil, and have pro- 
pagated so industriously every fiction or exaggeration 
unfavorable to freedom, that the honest and benevo- 
lent have been misled. The general state of mind 
among us in regard to West Indian Emancipation 
has been disheartening. So deadly a poison has 
Southern slavery infused into the opinions and feel- 
ihgs of the North, especially in the larger cities, 
that few cordial wishes for the success of Emancipa- 
tion have met our ears. Stray rumors of the failure 
of the experiment in this or that Island have been 
trumpeted through the country by the newspapers, 
and the easy faith of the multitude has been prac- 
tised on, till their sympathies with the oppressed 
have becom'e blunted. I have myself seen the 
countenance of a man, not wanting in general hu- 
manity, brighten at accounts of the bad working of 
emancipation. In such a state of feeling and opin- 
ion, a book like Mr. Gurney's is invaluable. The 
truth is told simply, kindly ; and, though it may 
receive little aid from our newspapers, must find its 
way into the hands of many honest readers. I offer 
a few extracts, not to take the place of the book, 
but in the hope of drawing to it more general atten- 
tion. So various and interesting are the details, and 
so suited to the various prejudices and misapprehen- 
sions common in our country, that my only difficulty 



is to make a selection, — to know where to stop. 
He first visited Tortola. 

" We could not but feel an intense interest in making 
our first visit to a British island, peopled with eman- 
cipated negroes. Out of a population of nearly five 
thousand, there are scarcely more than two hundred 
white persons ; but we heard of no inconveniences 
arising from this disparity. We had letters to Dr. 
Dyott, the Stipendiary Magistrate, and to some of 
the principal planters, who greeted us with a warm 
welcome, and soon relieved us from our very natural 
anxiety, by assuring us that freedom was working 
well in Tortola. One of our first visits was to a 
school for black children, under the care of Alexan- 
der Bott, the pious minister of the Parish Church. 
It was in good order — the children answered our 
questions well. We then proceeded to the jail ; in 
which, if my memory serves me right, we found only 
one prisoner, with the jailor, and the judge ! Our 
kind friend, Francis Spencer Wigley, the Chief Jus- 
tice of the British Virgin Islands, happened to be 
there, and cheered us with the information, that 
crime had vastly decreased since the period of full 
emancipation." p. 25. 

His next visit was to St. Christopher's. 

*' I mounted one of the Governor's horses, and en- 
joyed a solitary ride in the country. Ahhough it was 
the seventh day of the week, usually apphed by the 
emancipated laborers, to their private purposes, I ob. 



10 



served many of them diligently at work on the cane 
grounds, cutting the canes for the mill. Their aspect 
was that of physical vigor, and cheerful contentment, 
and all my questions as I passed along, were answer- 
ed satisfactorily. On my way, I ventured to call at 
one of tlie estates, and found it was the home of 
Robert Claxton, the solicitor General of the Colony, 
a gentleman of great intelligence and respectability. 
He was kind enough to impart a variety of useful, 
and in general, cheering, information. One fact 
mentioned by him, spoke volumes. Speaking of a 
small property on the island belonging to himself, he 
said, ' Six years ago, (that is, shortly before the act of 
emancipation,) it was worth only <£2,000, with the 
slaves upon it. Now, without a single slave, it is 
worth three times the money. I would not sell it for 
;£6,0()0.' This remarkable rise in the value of pro- 
perty, is by no means confined to particular estates. 
J. was assured that, as compared with those times of 
depression and alarm which preceded the act of 
emancipation, it is at once general and very consid- 
erable. I asked the President Crook, and some other 
persons, whether there was a single individual on the 
island, who wished for the restoration of slavery. 
Answer, ' Certainly not one.' " p. 34. 

" ' They will do an infinity of work," said one of 
my informants, \for wages.^ 

" This state of things is accompanied by a vast in- 
creas^e iu their own comforts. Our friend Cadman, 
the ]Mi;tliudist minister, was on this station, during 



11 



slavery, in the year 1826. He has now returned to 
it under freedom. ' The change for the better,' he 
observed, ' in the dress, demeanor, and welfare of the 
people, is prodigious.'' The imports are vastly in- 
creased. The duties on them were =£1,000 more in 
1833, than in 1837; and in 1839, double those of 
1838, within ^150. This surprising increase is 
owing to the demand on the part of the free laborers, 
for imported goods, especially for articles of dress. 
The difficulty experienced by the gentry living in the 
town, in procuring fowls, eggs, &c. from the negroes, 
is considerably increased. The reason is well known, 
— the laboi'ers make use of them for home consump- 
tion. Marriage is now become frequent amongst 
them, and a profusion of eggs is expended on their 
wedding cakes ! Doubtless they will soon learn to 
exchange these freaks of luxury, for the gradual ac- 
quisition of wealth." p. 36. 

He next visited Antigua. 

'* Our company was now joined by Nathaniel Gil- 
bert, an evangelical clergyman of the church of Eng- 
land, and a large proprietor and planter on the 
island. Both he and Sir William, the Governor, am- 
ply confirmed our previous favorable impressions re- 
specting the state of the colony. On my inquiring 
of them respecting the value of landed property, their 
joint answer was clear and decided. ' At the lowest 
computation, the land, without a single slave upon it, 
is fully as valuable now, as it was, including all the 
slaves, before emancipation.' In othef words, the value 



12 



of the slaves is already transferred to the land. Sat- 
isfactory as is this computation, I have every reason 
to believe that it is much below the mark. With re- 
spect to real property in the town of St. John's, it 
has risen in value with still greater rapidity. A large 
number of new stores, have been opened ; new hous- 
es are built or building; the streets have been cleared 
and improved ; trade is greatly on the increase ; and 
the whole place wears the appearance of progressive 
wealth and prosperity." p. 43. 

" Extensive inquiry has led us to the conviction, 
that on most of the properties of Antigua, and in gen- 
eral throughout the "West Indies, one-third only of 
the slaves were operative. What with childhood, 
age, infirmity, sickness, sham sickness, and other caus- 
es, full two-thirds of the negro population, might be 
regarded as dead weight. — The pecuniary saving, on 
many of the estates in Antigua, by the change of 
slave for free labor, is at least thirty per cent." pp. 
45, 46. 

" We had appointed a meeting at a country village 
called Parham. It was a morning of violent rain ; 
but about two hundred negroes braved the weather, 
and united with us in public worship. It is said that 
they are less willing to come out to their places of 
worship in the rain, than was the case formerly. 
The reason is curious. They now have shoes and 
stockings, which they are unwilling to expose to 
the mud." p. 47. 



•' It is a cheering circumstance of no small impor- 
tance, that there are no less, as we were told, than 
seven thousand scholars in the various charity schools 
of Antigua. In all these schools the Bible is read 
and taught. Who can doubt the beneficial moral 
effect of these extensive efforts ? " p. 48. 

" The vicar of St. John's, during the last seven 
years of slavery, married only one hundred and ten 
pairs of negroes. In the single year of freedom, 
1839, the number of pairs married by him, was 185. 

" AVith respect to crime — it has been rapidly di- 
minishing during the last few years. The numbers 
committed to the house of correction in 1837 — chiefly 
for petty offences, formerly punished on the estates — 
were 850; in 1838 only 244 ; in 1839, 311. The 
number left in the prison at the close of 1837, was 
147 ; at the close of 1839, only 35. 

" Nor can it be doubted that the personal comforts 
of the laborers have been, in the mean time, vastly 
increased. The duties on imports in 1833, (the last 
year of slavery) were .£13,576 ; in 1839, they were 
.£24,650. This augmentation has been occasioned 
by the importation of dry goods and other articles, 
for which a demand, entirely new, has arisen among 
the laboring population. The quantity of bread and 
meat used as food by the laborers is surprisingly in- 
creased. Their wedding cakes and dinners are ex- 
travagant, even to the point, at times, of drinking;^ 
champagne ! 

'♦ In connection with every congregation in the 
2 



14 



island, whether of the Church of England, or among 
the Dissenters, has been formed a friendly society. 
The laborers subscribe their weekly pittances to these 
institutions, and draw out comfortable supplies, in 
case of sickness, old age, burials, and other exigen- 
cies. Thus is the negro gradually trained to the hab- 
its of prudence and foresight." 

" A female proprietor who had become embarrass- 
ed, was advised to sell off part of her property, in 
small lots. The experiment answered her warmest 
expectations. The laborers in the neighborhood, 
bought up all the little freeholds with extreme ea- 
gerness, made their payments faithfully, and lost no 
time in settling on the spots which they had purchas- 
ed. They soon framed their houses, and brought, 
their gardens into useful cultivation with yams, ban- 
anas, plantains, pine-apples, and other fruits and veg- 
etables, including plots of sugar cane. In this way 
Augusta and Liberta sprang up as if by magic. I 
visited several of the cottages, in company with the 
Rector of the parish, and was surprised by the excel- 
lence of the buildings, as well as by the neat furni- 
ture, and cleanly little articles of daily use, which 
we found within. It was a scene of contentment and 
happiness ; and I may certainly add, of industry : 
for these little freeholders occupied only their leisure 
hours, in working on their own grounds. They 
were also earning wages as laborers on the neigh- 
boring estates, or working at English Harbor, as 
mechanics." p. 49. 



15 



" We were now placed in possession of clear doc- 
utnentary evidence, respecting the sta[)le produce of 
tlic island. The average exports of the last five 
years of slavery, (1829 to 1833 inclusive,) were, su- 
gar 12,189 hogsheads ; molasses 3,308 puncheons ; 
and rum 2,4GS puncheons. Those of the first five 
years of freedom, (1834 to 1838 inclusive,) were, su- 
gar 13,545 hogsheads; molasses 8,308 puncheons; 
and rum 1,109 puncheons: showing an excess of 
1,3.jG hogsheads of sugar, and of 5,000 puncheons of 
molasses; and a diminution of 1,359 puncheons of 
rum. This comparison is surely a triumphant one ; 
not only does it demonstrate the advantage derived 
from free labor during a course of five years, but af- 
fords a proof that many of the planters of Antigua 
have ceased to convert their molasses into rum. It 
ought to be observed tli;.t these five years of freedom 
included two of drought, one, very calamitous. The 
statement for 1839, forms an admirable climax to 
this account. It is as follows : sugar 22,383 hogs- 
heads ; (10,000 beyond the last average of slavery,) 
13,433 ])uncheons of molasses ; (also 10,000 beyond 
that average,) and only 582 puncheons of rum ! 
That, in the sixth year of freedom, after the fair trial 
of five years, the exports of sugar from Antigua, al- 
most doubled the average of the last five years of sla- 
very, is a fact which precludes the necessity of all 
other evidence. By what hands was this vast crop 
raised and realized ? By the hands of that lazy and 
impracticable race, (as they have often been describ- 



16 



ed,) the negroes. And under what stimulus has the 
work been effected 1 Solely under that of moderate 
wages." p. 53. 

He next visited Dominica, of which he gives 
equally favorable accounts ; but I hasten to make 
a few extracts from his notices of Jamaica, the island 
from which the most unfavorable reports have come, 
and in which the unwise and unkind measures of the 
proprietors, particularly in regard to rents, have done 
much to counteract the good influences of Emanci- 
pation. 

"We were glad to observe that the day (Sunday,) 
was remarkably well observed at Kingston — just as 
it is in many of the cities of your highly favored U- 
nion. A wonderful scene we witnessed, that morn- 
ing, in Samuel Oughton's Baptist Chapel, which we 
attended, without having communicated to the people 
any previous notice of our coming. The minister 
was so obliging as to make way for us on the occa- 
sion, and to invite us to hold our meeting with his 
flock, after the manner of Friends. Such a flock we 
had not before seen, consisting of nearly three thou- 
sand black people, chiefly emancipated slaves, attir- 
ed after their favorite custom, in neat white raiment, 
and most respectable and orderly in their demeanor 
and appearance. They sat in silence with us, in an 
exemplary manner, and appeared both to understand, 
and appreciate, the doctrines of divine truth, preach- 
ed on the occasion. The congregation is greatly in- 



17 



creased, both in numbers and respectability, since 
the date of full freedom. They pour in from the 
country partly on foot, and partly on mules, or horses, 
of their own. They now entirely support the mis- 
sion, and are enlarging their chapel at the expense 
of <^1,000 sterling. Their subscriptions to this and 
other collateral objects, are at once voluntary and 
very liberal. ' I have brought my mite for the chap- 
el,' said a black woman, once a slave, to S. Oughton, 
a day or two before our meeting ; ' I am sorry it is 
no more ;' she then put into his hand, two pieces of 
gold, amounting to five dollars." p. 74. 

*' Here it may be well to notice the fact, that the 
great majority of estates in Jamaica, belong to absen- 
tee proprietors, who reside in England. In Jamaica, 
they are placed under the care of some attorney, or 
representative of the owner ; one attorney often un- 
dertaking the care of numerous estates. Under the 
attorney, is the overseer, on each particular proper- 
ty, on whom the management almost exclusively de- 
volves. This state of things is extremely unfavorable 
to the welfare of Jamaica. If the proprietors cannot 
give their personal attention to their estates, it 
would certainly be a better plan to lease them to eli- 
gible tenants on the spot — a practice which has, of 
late years, been adopted in many instances. It is 
only surprising that estates never visited by the pro- 
prietor, and seldom by the attorney, but left to the 
care of inexperienced young men, often of immoral 
character, should prosper at all. Nor would they 
2* 



18 



prosper, even as they now do, but for two causes ; 
first, the exuberant bounty of nature, and secondly, 
the orderly, inoffensive conduct, and patient industry, 
of the nejf ro race." p. 85. 

" The rapid diffusion of marriage among the ne- 
groes, and the increase of it even among the white 
inhabitants in Jamaica, is one of the happiest results 
of freedom. We were assured on good authority 
that four times as many marriages took place, last 
year in Jamaica, as in an equal population, on an 
average, in England — a fact which proves not only 
that numerous new connections are formed, but also 
that multitudes who were formerly living as a man 
and wife without the right sanction, are now con- 
vinced of the sinfulness of the practice, and are avail- 
ing themselves, with eagerness, of the marriage cov- 
enant. It appears that upwards of IGOO negro coup- 
les, were married in the Baptist churches alone, dur- 
ing the year 1839." p. 86. 

" In the Parish (or county) of St. Mary, rent and 
wages have been arranged quite independently of 
each other, and labor has been suffered to find its 
market, without obstruction. The consequence is, 
that there have been no differences, and the people 
are working well. The quantity of work obtained 
from a freeman there, is far beyond the old task of 
the slave. In the laboi-ious occupation of holing, the 
emancipated negroes perform double the work of the 
slave, in a day. In road making the day's task un- 
der slavery, was to break four barrels of stone. 



19 



Now, by task-work, a weak hand will fill eight bar- 
rels, a strong one, from ten to twelve." p. 89. 

" At the Baptist station at Sligoville, we spent sev- 
eral hours. It is located on a lofty hill, and is sur- 
rounded by fifty acres of fertile mountain land. This 
property is divided into one hundred and fifty free- 
hold lots, fifty of which had been already sold to 
the emancipated laborers, and had proved a timely 
refuge for many laborers who had been driven, by 
hard usage, from their former homes. Some of them 
had built good cottages ; others, temporary huts ; 
and others again were preparing the ground for build- 
ing. Their gardens were cleared, or in process of 
clearing, and in many cases, already brought into 
fine cultivation. Not a hoe, I believe, had ever been 
driven into that land before. Now, a village had ris- 
en up, with every promise of comfort and prosperity, 
and the land was likely to produce a vast abundance 
of nutritious food. The people settled there were all 
married pairs, mostly with families, and the men em- 
ployed the bulk of their time, in working for wages 
on the neighboring estates. The chapel and the 
school were immediately at hand, and the religious 
character of the people stood high. Never did I wit- 
ness a scene of greater industry, or one more marked 
by contentment for the present, and hope for the 
future. How instructive to remember that two 
years ago, this peaceful village had no exist- 
ence ! " p. 90. 

" On our return home we visited two neighboring 



20 



estates, of about equal size, (I believe,) and equal fer- 
tility ; both, among the finest properties, for natural 
and local advantages, which I any where saw in Ja- 
maica. One was in difficulty — the other all prosper- 
ity. The first was the estate already alluded to, 
which had been deprived of so many hands, by vain 
attempts to compel the labor of freemen. There, if 
I am not mistaken, I saw, as we passed by, the clear 
marks of that violence, by which the people had been 
expelled. The second, called " Dawkin's Cay- 
manas," was under the enlightened attorneyship of 
Judge Bernard, who with his lady, and the respecta- 
ble overseer, met us on the spot. On this property, 
the laborers were independent tenants. Their rent 
was settled, according to the money value of the ten- 
ements which they occupied, and they were allowed 
to take their labor to the best market they could find. 
As a matter of course, they took it to the home mar- 
ket ; and excellently were they working, on the prop- 
erty of their old master. The attorney, the overseer, 
and the laborers, all seemed equally satisfied — equal- 
ly at their ease. Here then was one property which 
would occasion a had report of Jamaica — another 
which would as surely give rise to a good report. As 
it regards the properties themselves, both reports are 
true — and they are the respective results of two op- 
posite modes of management. 

" At Dawkin's Caymanas, Ave had the pleasure of 
witnessing an interesting spectacle ; for the laborers 
on the property, with their wives, sons and daugh- 



21 



ters, were on that day, met at a picnic dinner. Tlie 
table, of vast length, was spread under a wattled 
building erected for the purpose, and at the conve- 
nient hour of six in the evening, (after the day's 
work was finished,) was loaded with all sorts of good 
fare— soup, fish, fowls, pigs, and joints of meat in 
abundance. About one hundred and fifty men and 
women, of the African race, attired with the greatest 
neatness, were assembled, in much harmony and or- 
der, to partake of the feast ; but no drink was pro- 
vided, stronger than water. Tt was a sober, substan- 
tial, repast — the festival of peace and freedom. 
This dinner was to have taken place on New Year's 
day ; but it so happened, that a Baptist Meeting 
House in another part of the island, had been de- 
stroyed by fire ; and at the suggestion of their minis- 
ter, these honest people agreed to waive their dinner, 
and to subscribe their money, instead, to the rebuild- 
ing of the Meeting House. For this purpose, they 
raised a noble sum, (I believe considerably upwards 
of ^100 sterling ;) and now, in the third month of 
the year, finding that matters were working well with 
them, they thought it well to indulge themselves with 
their social dinner. By an unanimous vote, they 
commissioned me to present a message of their affec- 
tionate regards, to Thomas Clarkson, and Thomas 
Fowell Buxton, the two men, to whom of all others, 
perhaps, they were the most indebted for their pres- 
ent enjoyment." pp. 91, 92. 



22 



" After breakfast we drove to Kelley's, one of Lord 
Sligo's properties. — We saw the people, on this pro- 
perty, busily engaged in the laborious occupation of 
holing — a work for which ploughing is now pretty 
generally substituted, in Jamaica. ' How are you 
all getting along ? ' said my companion, to a tall, 
bright-looking black man, busily engaged with his 
hoe. ' Right well, massa, right well,' he replied. ' I 
am fi-om America,' said my friend, ' where there are 
many slaves : what shall I say to them from you ? 
shall I tell them that freedom is working well here ? ' 
' Yes, massa,' said he, ' much well und^er freedom — 
thank God for it.' ' Much well ' they were indeed 
doing, for they were earning a dollar for every 
hundred cane holes — a great effort certainly, but 
one which many of them accomplished by four 
o'clock in the afternoon. ' How is this 1 ' asked the 
same friend, as he felt the lumps or welts on the 
shoulder of another man. « O, massa,' cried the ne- 
gro, ' I was flogged when a slave — no more whip 
now— all free.' " p. 96. 

*' The prosperity of the planters in Jamaica, must 
not be measured by the mere amount of the produce 
of sugar or coffee, as compared with the time of sla- 
very. Even where produce is diminished, profit will 
be increased — if freedom be fairly tried — by the sav- 
ing of expense. ' I had rather make sixty tierces of 
coffee,' said A. B., ' under freedom, than one hun- 
dred and twenty under slavery — such is the saving of 



23 



expense, that I make a better profit by it — neverthe- 
less, I mean to make one hundred and twenty, as be- 
fore: " p. 1 18. 

" ' Do you see that excellent new stone wall round 
the field below us 1 ' said the young physician to me, 
as we stood at A. B.'s front door, surveying the de- 
lightful scenery. — ' That wall could scarcely have 
been built at all, under slavery, or the apprenticeship ; 
the necessary labor could not have been hired at less 
than £5 currency, or about $13, per chain. Under 
freedom, it cost only from $3 50 to $4 per chain — 
not one-third of the amount. Still more remarkable 
is the fact, that the whole of it was built, under the 
stimulus of job-work, by an invalid negro, who, dur- 
ing slavery, had been given up to a total inaction.' 
This was the substance of our conversation — the in- 
formation was afterwards fully confirmed by the pro- 
prietor. Such was the fresh blood infused into the 
veins of this decrepid person, by the genial hand of 
freedom, that he had been redeemed from absolute 
uselessness — had executed a noble work — had great- 
ly improved his master's property — and finally, had 
realised for himself, a handsome sum of money. 
This single fact is admirably and undeniably illustra- 
tive of the principles of the case ; and, for that pur- 
pose, is as good as a thousand." p. 119. 

" I will take the present opportunity of ofiiering to 
thy attention, the account of exports from Jamaica, 
(as exhibited in the return printed for the House of 



24 



Assembly,) for the last year of the apprenticeship, 
and the first of full freedom. 

Hhds. 
Sugar, for the year ending 9th-month, 

(Sep.) 30, 1838, - - - 53,825 

Do. do. do. do. 1839, 45,359 



Apparent diminution, - 8,466 

" This difference is much less considerable, than 
many persons have been led to imagine ; the real 
diminution, however, is still less ; because there has 
lately taken place in Jamaica, an increase in the size 
of the hogshead. Instead of the old measure, which 
contained 17 cwt., new ones have been introduced, 
containing from 20 to 22 cwt. — a change which, for 
several reasons, is an economical one for the planter. 
Allowing only five per cent, for this change, the de- 
ficiency is reduced from 8,466 hogsheads, to 5,175 ; 
and this amount is further lessened by the fact, that 
in consequence of freedom, there is a vast addition 
to the consumption of sugar among the people of 
Jamaica itself, and therefore to the home sale. 

" The account of coffee is not so favorable. 

Cwt. 
Coffee, for the year ending 9th-month, 

(Sep.) 30, 1838, - - - 117,313 

Do. do. do. do. 1839, 78,759 



Diminution, (about one-third) 38,554 



25 



" The coffee is a very uncertain crop, and the defi- 
ciency, on the comparison of these two years, is not 
greater, I believe, than has often occurred before. 
We are also to remember, that both in sugar and 
coffee, the profit to the planter may be increased by 
the saving of expense, even when the produce is di- 
minished. Still, it must be allowed that some de- 
crease has taken place, on both the articles, in connec- 
tion with the change of system. With regard to the 
year 1840, it is expected that coffee will at least 
maintain the last amount; but a farther decrease on 
sugar is generally anticipated. 

" Now so far as this decrease of produce is con- 
nected with the change of system, it is obviously to 
be traced to a corresponding decrease in the quantity 
of labor. But here comes the critical question — the 
real turning point. To what is this decrease in the 
quantity of labor owing 1 I answer deliberately, but 
without reserve, ' Mainly to causes which class under 
slavery, and not under freedom.' It is, for the most 
part, the result of those impolitic attempts to force 
the labor of freemen, which have disgusted the peas- 
antry, and have led to the desertion of many of the 
estates. 

" It is a cheering circumstance that the amount of 
planting and other preparatory labor, bestowed on 
the estates during the autumn of 1839, has been much 
greater, by all accounts, than in the autumn of 1838. 
This is itself the effect of an improved understanding 
between the planters and the peasants ; and the re- 
3 



26 



suit of it (if other circumstances be equal) cannot fail 
to be a considerable increase of produce in 1841. I 
am told, however, that there is one circumstance 
which may possibly prevent this result, as it regards 
sugar. It is, that the cultivation of it, under the old 
system, was forced on certain properties which, from 
their situation and other circumstances, were wholly 
unfit for the purpose. These plantations afforded 
an income to the local agents, but to the proprietors 
were either unprofitable, or losing, concerns. On 
such properties, under those new circumstances which 
bring all things to their true level, the cultivation of 
sugar must cease. 

" In the mean time, the imports of the island are 
rapidly increasing ; trade, improving ; the towns, 
thriving ; new villages rising in every direction ; 
property, much enhanced in value ; well-managed 
estates, productive and profitable ; expenses of man- 
agement diminished ; short methods of labor adopt- 
ed ; provisions cultivated on a larger scale than ever ; 
and the people, wherever they are properly treat- 
ed, industrious, contented, and gradually accumula- 
ting wealth." p. 132. 

" My narrative respecting the British West India 
islands, being now brought to a close, I will take the 
liberty of concentrating and recapitulating the prin- 
cipal points of the subject, in a few distinct propo- 
sitions. 

" 1st. The emancipated negroes are working well 
on the estates of their old masters. — Nor does Jamaica, 



27 



when duly inspected and fairly estimated, furnish 
any exception to the general result. We find that, 
in that island, wherever the negroes are fairly, kind- 
ly, and wisely treated, there they are working well 
on the properties of their old masters ; and that the 
existing instances of a contrary description, must be 
ascribed to causes which class under slavery, and not 
under freedom. Let it not however be imagined, 
that the negroes, who are not working on the estates 
of their old masters, are on that account, idle. Even 
these, are in general, busily employed in cultivating 
their own grounds, in various descriptions of handi- 
craft, in lime burning or fishing — in benefiting them- 
selves and the community, through some new, but 
equally desirable medium. Besides all this, stone 
walls are built, new houses erected, pastures cleaned, 
ditches dug, meadows drained, roads made and mac- 
adamised, stores fitted up, villages formed, and other 
beneficial operations effected ; the whole of which, 
before emancipation, it would have been a folly even 
to attempt. The old notion that the negro is, by 
constitution, a lazy creature who will do no work 
at all except by compulsion, is now for ever ex- 
ploded." p. 137. 

" 2d. An increased quantity of work thrown upon 
the market, is of course followed by the cheapening 
of labor." p. 138. 

"3d. Real property has risen, and is rising in val- 
ue. — 1 wish it, however, to be understood, that the 
comparison is not here made with those olden times 



28 



of slavery, when the soils of the island were in their 
most prolific state, and the slaves themselves, of a 
corresponding value ; but with those days of depres- 
sion and alarm, which preceded the act of emancipa- 
tion. All that I mean to assert is, that landed prop- 
erty, in the British colonies, has touched the bottom, 
has found that bottom solid, has already risen consid- 
erably, and is now on a steady ascending march, to- 
wards the recovery of its highest value. One cir- 
cumstance which greatly contributed to produce its 
depreciation, was the cry of interested persons who 
wished to run it down ; and the demand for it, which 
has arisen among these very persons, is now restor- 
ing it to its rightful value. Remember the old gen- 
tleman in Antigua, who is always complaining of the 
effects of freedom, and ahoays buying land.'''' p. 139. 
" 4th. The personal couiforts of the laboring 
population, under freedom, are multiplied ten- 
fold." p. 140. 

" 5th. Lastly, the moral and religious improve- 
meiit of this people, under freedom, is more than 
equal to the increase of their comforts. Under this 
head, there are three points, deserving, respectively, 
of a distinct place in our memories. First, the 
rapid increase, and vast extent of elementary and 
Christian education — schools for infants, young per- 
sons, and adults, multiplying in every direction. 
Secondly, the gradual, but decided diminution of 
crime, amounting, in many country districts, almost 
to its extinction. Thirdly, the happy change of the 



29 



general, and almost universal, practice of concubi- 
nage, for the equally general adoption of marriage. 
" Concubinage," says Dr. Stewart in his letter to me, 
"the universal practice of the colored people, has 
wholly disappeared from amongst them. No young 
woman of color thinks of forming such connections 
now." What is more, the improved morality of the 
blacks, is reflecting itself on the white inhabitants — 
even the overseers are ceasing, one after another, 
from a sinful mode of life, and are forming reputa- 
ble connections in marriage. But while these three 
points are confessedly of high importance, there is a 
fourth which at once embraces, and outweighs, them 
all — I mean the diffusion of vital Christianity. I 
know that great apprehensions were entertained — es- 
pecially in this country — lest on the cessation of sla- 
very, the negroes should break away at once from 
their masters, and their ministers. But freedom has 
come, and while their masters have not been forsak- 
en, their religious teachers have become dearer to 
them than ever. Under the banner of liberty, the 
churches and meeting-houses have been enlarged 
and multiplied, the attendance has become regular 
and devout, the congregations have, in many cases, 
been more than doubled — above all, the conver- 
sion of souls (as we have reason to believe) has 
been going on to an extent never before known in 
these colonies. In a religious point of view, as I 
have before hinted, the wilderness, in many places, 
has indeed begun to ' blossom as the rose.' ' Instead 
3* 



30 



of the thorn,' has ' come up the fir-tree, and instead 
of the briar' has 'come up the myrtle tree, and it 
shall be to the Lord for a name — for an everlasting 
sign that shall not be cut off.' p. 141. 

I have now given a few extracts from Mr. Gur- 
ney's book. They need no comment. Indeed, 
nothing can be said to convince or move the reader, 
if these simple records of Emancipation do not find 
their way to his heart. In the whole history of 
efforts for human happiness, it is doubtful, if another 
example can be found of so great a revolution ac- 
complished with so few sacrifices, and such imme- 
diate reward. Compare with this the American 
Revolution, which had for its end to shake off a 
yoke too light to be named by the side of domestic 
slavery. Through what fields of blood and years of 
suffering, did we seek civil freedom, a boon insignifi- 
cant in comparison with freedom from an owner's 
grasp ! It is the ordinary law of Providence, that 
great blessings shall be gained by great sacrifices, 
and that the most beneficial social changes shall 
bring immediate suffering. That near a million of 
human beings should pass in a day from the deepest 
degradation to the rights of freemen, with so little 
agitation of the social system, is a fact so strange, that 
we naturally suspect at first some tinging of the pic- 
ture from the author's sympathies ; and we are 



31 



brought to full conviction only by the simplicity 
and minuteness of his details. For one, I shoidd 
have rejoiced in Emancipation as an unspeakable 
good, had the immediate results worn a much 
darker hue. I wanted only to know, that social or- 
der was preserved, that the laws were respected 
after Emancipation. I felt, that, were anarchy 
escaped, no evil worse than slavery could take its 
place. I had not forgotten the doctrine of our 
fathers, that human freedom was worth vast sacri- 
fices, that it could hardly be bought at too great 
a price. 

I proceed now to offer a {ew remarks on several 
topics suggested by Mr. Gurney's book, and T shall 
close by considering the duties which belong to in- 
dividuals and to the free States in relation to sla- 
very. 

The first topic suggested by our author, and per- 
haps the most worthy of note, is his anxiety to show 
that Emancipation has been accompanied with little 
pecuniary loss, that as a monied speculation it is 
not to be condemned. He evidently supposes, that 
he is writing for a people who will judge of this 
grand event in history by the standard of commer- 
cial profit or loss. In this view, his simple book 
tells more than a thousand satires against the spirit 
of our times. In speaking of West Indian Emancipa- 
tion, it has been common for men to say. We must 



wait for the facts 1 And what facts have they wait- 
ed for ? They have waited to know, that the mas- 
ter, after fattening many years on oppression, had 
lost nothing by the triumph of justice and human- 
ity ; that the slave, on being freed, was to yield as 
large an income as before to his employer. This 
delicate sensibility to the rights of the wrong doer, 
this concern for property, this unconcern for human 
nature, is a sign of the little progress made even 
here by free principles, and of men's ignorance of the 
great end of social union. 

Every good man must protest against this mode 
of settling the question of Emancipation. It seems 
to be taken for granted by not a few, that if, in con- 
sequence of this event, the crops have fallen off, or 
the number of coffee bags or sugar hogsheads is les- 
sened, then Emancipation is to be pronounced a 
failure, and the great act of freeing a people from the 
most odious bondage, is to be set down as folly. 
At the North and the South this base doctrine has 
seized on the public mind. It runs through our presses, 
not excepting the more respectable. The bright pro- 
mises of Emancipation are too unimportant for our 
newspapers ; but the fearful intelligence, that this or 
that island has shipped fewer hogsheads of sugar than 
in the days of slavery, is thought worthy to be pub- 
lished far and wide, and Emancipation is a curse, 
because the civilized world must pay a few cents 



33 



more to bring tea or coffee to the due degree of 
sweetness. It passes for an " ultraism" of philan- 
thropy, to prize a million of human beings above as 
many pounds of sugar. 

What is the great end of civilized society ? Not 
coffee and sugar ; not the greatest possible amount 
of mineral, vegetable, or animal productions ; but the 
protection of the rights of all its members. The 
sacrifice of rights, especially of the dearest and 
most sacred, to increase of property, is one of the 
most flagrant crimes of the social state. That every 
man should have his due, not that a kw proprietors 
should riot on the toil, sweat, and blood of the many, 
this is the great design of the union of men into 
communities. Emancipation was not meant to in- 
crease the crops, but to restore to human beings 
their birthright, to give to every man the free use 
of his powers for his own and others' good. 

That the production of sugar would be diminish- 
ed for a time, in consequence of Emancipation, was 
a thing to be expected if not desired. It is in the 
sugar culture, that the slaves in the West Indies have 
been and are most overworked. In Cuba we are 
told by men, who have given particular attention to 
that island, that the mortality on the sugar estates is 
ten per cent annually, so that a whole gang is used 
up, swept off in ten years. Suppose Emancipation 
introduced into Cuba. Would not the production 



34 



of sugar be diminished ? Ought not every man to 
desire the diminution ? I do not say that such atro- 
cious cruehy was common in the British Islands. 
But it was in this department chiefly, that the slaves 
were exposed to excessive toil. It was to be ex- 
pected then, that, when left free, they would prefer 
other modes of industry. Accordingly whilst the 
sugar is diminished, the ordinary articles of subsis- 
tence have increased. Some of the slaves have 
become small farmers, and many more, who hire 
themselves as laborers, cultivate small patches of 
land on their account. There is another important 
consideration. Before freedom, the women formed 
no inconsiderable part of the gangs who labored on 
the sugar crops. These are now very much if not 
wholly withdrawn. Is it a grief to a man, who has 
the spirit of a man, that woman's burdens are made 
lighter? Other causes of the diminution of the 
sugar crop may be found in Mr. Gurney's book ; 
but these are enough to show us, that this effect is 
due in part to the good working of Emancipation, to 
a relief of the male and female slave, in which we 
ought to rejoice. 

Before Emancipation I expected that the imme- 
diate result of the measure would be more or less 
idleness, and consequently a diminution of produce. 
How natural was it to anticipate, that men who had 
worked under the lash, and had looked on exemp- 



35 



tion from toil as the happiness of paradise, should 
surrender themselves more or less to sloth on becom- 
ing their own masters. It is the curse of a bad 
system to unfit men at first for a better. That the 
paralyzing effect of slavery should continue after its 
extinction, that the slave should at the first produce 
less than before, this surely is no matter of wonder. 
The wonder is, and it is a great one, that the slaves 
in the West Indies have, in their new condition, been 
so greatly influenced by the motives of freemen ; 
that the spirit of industry has so far survived the 
system of compulsion, under which they had been 
trained ; that ideas of a better mode of living have 
taken so strong a hold on their minds; that so many 
refined tastes and wants have been so soon develop- 
ed. Here is the wonder ; and all this shows, what 
we have often heard, that the negro is more suscep- 
tible of civilization from abroad than any other race 
of men. That some, perhaps many of the slaves, 
have worked too little, is not to be denied, nor can 
we blame them much for it. All of us, I suspect, 
under like circumstances would turn our first free- 
dom into a holiday. Besides, when we think, that 
they have been sweating and bleeding to nourish in 
all manner of luxury a few indolent proprietors, 
they do not seem very inexcusable for a short em- 
ulation of their superiors. The negro sleeping all 
day under the shade of the palm tree, ought not to 



offend our moral sense, much more than the " own- 
er" stretched on his ottoman or sofa. What oughtto 
astonish us is the Hmitation, not the existence of the 
evih 

It is to be desired, that those among us, who 
groan over Emancipation, because the staples of the 
islands are diminished, should be made to wear for 
a few months the yoke of slavery, so as to judge ex- 
perimentally whether freedom is worth or not a few 
hogsheads of sugar. If knowing what this yoke is, 
they are willing that others should bear it, they de- 
serve themselves above all others to be crushed by 
it. Slavery is the greatest of wrongs, the most in- 
tolerable of all the forms of oppression. We of 
this country thought, that to be robbed of political 
liberty was an injury not to be endured ; and, as a 
people, were ready to shed our blood like water to 
avert it. But political liberty is of no worth com- 
pared with personal ; and slavery robs men of the 
latter. Under the despotisms of modern Europe, 
the people, though deprived of political freedom, en- 
joy codes of laws constructed with great care, the 
fruits of the wisdom of ages, which recognize the 
sacredness of the rights of person and property, and 
under which those rights are essentially secure. A 
subject of these despotisms may still be a man, may 
better his condition, may enrich his intellect, may 
fill the earth with his fame. He enjoys essentially 



37 



personal freedom, and through this accompHshes the 
great ends of his being. To be stripped of this 
blessing, to be owned by a fellow creature, to hold 
our limbs and faculties as another's property, to be 
subject every moment to another's will, to stand in 
awe of another's lash, to have our whole energies 
chained to never varying tasks for another's luxury, 
to hold wife and children at another's pleasure, — 
what wrong can be compared whh this ? This is 
such an insult on human nature, such an impiety 
towards the common Father, that the whole earth 
should send up one cry of reprobation against it ; 
and yet we are told, this outrage must continue, lest 
the market of the civilized world should be depriv- 
ed of some hogsheads of sugar. 

It is hard to weigh human rights against each 
other ; they are all sacred and invaluable. But 
there is no one which nature,. instinct, makes so dear 
to us as the right of action, of free motion ; the 
right of exerting, and by exertion enlarging our fac- 
ulties of body and mind; the right of forming plans, 
of directing our powers according to our convictions 
of interest and duty ; the right of putting forth our 
energies from a spring in our own breasts. Self- 
motion, this is what our nature hungers and thirsts 
for as its true element and life. In truth, every 
thing that lives, the bird, the insect, craves and de- 
lights in freedom of action ; and much more must 
4 



38 



this be the instinct of a rational moral creature of 
God, who can attain by such freedom alone to the 
proper strength and enjoyment of his nature. The 
rights of property or reputation are poor compared 
with this. Of what worth would be the products 
of the universe to a man forbidden to use his limbs, 
or shut up in a prison ? To be deprived of that 
freedom of action which consists with others' free- 
dom ; to be forbidden to exert our faculties for our 
own good ; to be cut off from enterprise ; to have 
a narrow circle drawn round us and to be kept with- 
in it by a spy and a lash ; to meet an iron barrier in 
another's selfish will, let impulse or desire turn 
where it may ; to be systematically denied the 
means of cultivating the powers which distinguish 
us from the brute ; — this is to be wounded not only 
in the dearest earthly interests, but in the very life 
of the soul. Our humanity pines and dies rather 
than lives in this unnatural restraint. Now it is the 
very essence of slavery to prostrate this right of ac- 
tion, of self-motion, not indirectly or uncertainly, 
but immediately and without disguise ; and is this 
right to be weighed in the scales against sugar and 
coffee ? and are eight hundred thousand human be- 
ings to be robbed of it to increase the luxuries of 
the world ? 

What matters it, that the staples of the West In- 
dies are diminished ? Do the people there starve ? 



39 



Are they driven by want to robbery ? Has the 
negro passed from the hands of the overseer into 
those of the hangman ? We learn from Mr. Gur- 
ney that the prophecies of ruin to the West Indies 
are fulfilled chiefly in regard to the prisons. These 
are in some places falling to decay and every where 
have fewer inmates. And what makes this result 
more striking is, that, since Emancipation, many of- 
fences, formerly punished summarily by the master 
on the plantation, now fall under the cognizance of 
the magistrate, and are of course punishable by im- 
prisonment. Do the freed slaves want clothing ? 
Do rags form the standard of Emancipation ? We 
hear not only of decent apparel, but are told that 
negro vanity, hardly surpassed by that of the white 
dandy, suffers nothing foi want of decoration or fash- 
ionable attire. There is not a sign, that the people 
fare the worse for freedom. Enough is produced 
to give subsistence to an improved and cheerful pop- 
ulation, and what more can we desire ? In our sym- 
pathy with the rich proprietor, shall we complain of 
a change, which has secured to every man his rights, 
and to thousands, once trodden under foot, the com- 
forts of life and the means of intellectual and moral 
progress ? Is it nothing that the old unfurnished 
hut of the slave is in many spots giving place to the 
comfortable cottage ? Is it nothing, that in these 
cottages marriage is an indissoluble tie ? that the 



40 



mother presses her child to her lieart as indeed her 
own ? Is it nothing, that churches are springing 
up, not from the donations of the opulent, but from 
the hard earnings of the religious poor ? What if 
a few owners of sugar estates export less than for- 
merly ? Are the many always to be sacrificed to 
the few ? Suppose the luxuries of the splendid 
mansion to be retrenched. Is it no compensation 
that the comforts of the laborer's hut are increased ? 
Emancipation was resisted on the ground, that the 
slave, if restored to his rights, would fall into idle- 
ness and vagrancy, and even relapse into barba- 
rism. But the emancipated negro discovers no in- 
difference to the comforts of civihzed life. He has 
wants various enough to keep him in action. His 
standard of living has risen. He desires a better 
lodging, dress, and food. He has begun too to thirst 
for accumulation. As Mr. Gurney says, " he un- 
derstands his interest as well as a yankee." He is 
more likely to fall into the civilized man's cupidity 
than into the sloth and filth of a savage. Is it an 
offset for all these benefits, that the custom house re- 
ports a diminution of the staples of slavery ? 

What a country most needs, is not an increase of 
its exports, but the well being of all classes of its 
population and especially of the most numerous 
class ; and these things are not one and the same. 
It is a striking fact, that while the exports of the 



41 



emancipated islands have decreased, the imports are 
greater than before. In Jamaica, during slavery, 
the industry of the laborers was given chiefly to a 
staple, which was sent to absentee proprietors, who 
expended the proceeds very much in a luxurious 
life in England. At present, not a little of this in- 
dustry is employed on articles of subsistence and 
comfort for the working class and their families-; 
and, at the same time, such an amount of labor is 
sold by this class to the planter, and so fast are they 
acquiring a taste for better modes of living, that 
they need and can pay for great imports from the 
mother country. Surely when we see the fruits of 
Industry diffusing themselves more and more through 
the mass of a community, finding their way to the 
very hovel, and raising the multitude of men to new 
civilization and self respect, we cannot grieve much, 
even though it should appear, that on the whole the 
amount of exports or even of products is decreased. 
It is not the quantity, but the distribution, the use of 
products, which determines the prosperity of a state. 
For example, were the grain, which is now grown 
among us for distillation, annually destroyed by fire, 
or were every ship, freighted with distilled liquors, to 
sink on approaching our shores, so that the crew 
might be saved, how immensely would the happi- 
ness, honor, and real strength of the country be in- 
creased by the loss, even were this not to be replac- 
4* 



42 



ed, as it soon would be, by the springing up of a 
new, virtuous industry now excluded by intempe- 
rance. So were the labor and capital now spent 
on the importation of pernicious luxuries, to be em- 
ployed in the intellectual, moral, and religious culture 
of the whole people, how immense would be the 
gain, in every respect, though for a short time mate- 
rial products were diminished. A better age will 
look back with wonder and scorn on the misdirected 
industry of the present times. The only sure sign 
of public prosperity is, that the mass of the people 
are steadily multiplying the comforts of life and the 
means of improvement ; and where this takes place, 
we need not trouble ourselves about exports or pro- 
ducts. 

* I am not very anxious to repel the charge against 
Emancipation of diminishing the industry of the 
islands, though it has been much exaggerated. Al- 
low that the freed slaves work less. Has man 
nothing to do but work ? Are not loo many here 
overworked ? If a people can live with comfort 
on less toil, are they not to be envied rather than 
condemned ? What a happiness would it be, if we 
here, by a new wisdom, a new temperance, and a 
new spirit of brotherly love, could cease to be the 
care-worn drudges which so many in all classes are, 
and could give a greater portion of life to thought, 
to refined social intercourse, to the enjoyment of the 



43 



beauty which God spreads over the universe, to 
works of genius and art, to conamunion with our 
Creator ? Labor connected with and aiding such a 
hfe would be noble. How much of it is thrown 
away on poor, superficial, degrading gratifications ! 

We hear the condition of Hayti deplored, be- 
cause the people are so idle and produce so little 
for exportation. Many look back to the period, 
when a few planters drove thousands of slaves to 
the cane-field and sugar-mill, in order to enrich them- 
selves and to secure to their families the luxurious 
ease so coveted in tropical climes ; and they sigh 
over the change which has taken place. I look on 
the change with very difterent feelings. The ne- 
groes in that luxuriant island have increased to 
above a million. By slight toil they obtain the 
comforts of life. Their homes are sacred. Their 
little property in a good degree secure. They live 
together peaceably. So little inclined are they to 
violence, that the large amounts of specie paid by 
the government to France, as the price of indepen- 
dence, have been transported through the country 
on horseback, with comparatively no defence, and 
with a safety which no one would be mad enough to 
expect, under such circumstances, in what are call- 
ed civilized lands. It is true, their enjoyments are 
animal in a great degree. They live much like 
neglected children, making litde or no progress, mak- 



44 



ing life one long day of unprofitable ease. I should 
rejoice to raise them from children into men. But 
when I contrast this tranquil, unoffending life with 
the horrors of a slave plantation, it seems to me a 
paradise. What matters it that they send next to 
no coffee or sugar to Europe ? How much better, 
that they should stretch themselves in the heat of 
the day under their gracefully waving groves, than 
sweat and bleed under an overseer for others' selfish 
ease ! Hayti has one curse, and that is not freedom, 
but tyranny. Her President for life is a despot un- 
der a less ominous name. Her government, indif- 
ferent or hostile to the improvement of the people, 
is sustained by a standing army, which undoubtedly 
is an instrument of oppression. But in so simple 
a form of society, despotism is not that organized 
robbery which has flourished in the civilized world. 
Undoubtedly in this rude state of things, the laws 
are often unwise, partial, and ill administered. I 
have no taste for this childish condition of society. 
Still I turn with pleasure from slavery to the thought 
of a million of fellow beings, little instructed in- 
deed, but enjoying ease and comfort, under that 
beautiful sky and on the bosom of that exhaustless 
soil. In one respect Hayti is infinitely advantaged 
by her change of condition. Under slavery, her 
colored population, that is, the mass of her inhabi- 
tants had no chance of rising, could make no pro- 



45 



gress in intelligence and in the arts and refinements 
of life. They were doomed to perpetual degrada- 
tion. Under freedom their improvement is possi- 
ble. They are placed within the reach of melio- 
rating influences. Their intercourse with other na- 
tions, and the opportunities afforded to many among 
them of bettering their condition, furnish various 
means and incitements to progress. If the Catho- 
lic church, which is rendering at this moment im- 
mense aid to civilization and pure morals in Ire- 
land, were to enter in earnest on the work of en- 
lightening and regenerating Hayti, or if (what I 
should greatly prefer,) any other church could have 
free access to the people, this island might in a 
short time become an important accession to the 
Christian and civilized world, and the dark cloud 
which hangs over the first years of her freedom 
would vanish before the brightness of her later history. 
My maxim is, " Any thing but slavery ! Pover- 
ty sooner than slavery !" Suppose that we of this 
good city of Boston .were summoned to choose be- 
tween living on bread and water and such a state of 
things as existed in the West Indies. Suppose that 
the present wealth of our metropolis could be con- 
tinued only on the condition, that five thousand out 
of our eighty thousand inhabitants should live as 
princes, and the rest of us be reduced to slavery 
to sustain the luxury of our masters. Should we not 



46 



all cry out, Give us the bread and water ? Would 
we not rather see our fair city levelled to the earth, 
and choose to work out slowly for ourselves and our 
children a better lot, than stoop our necks to the 
yoke ? So we all feel, when the case is brought 
home to ourselves. What should we say to the 
man, who should strive to terrify us, by prophecies 
of diminished products and exports, into the substi- 
tution of bondage for the character of freemen. 

In the preceding remarks I have insisted that 
Emancipation is not to be treated as a question of 
profit and loss, that its merits are not to be settled 
by its influence on the master's gains. Mr. Gur- 
ney however maintains, that the master has nothing 
to fear, that real estate has risen, that free labor 
costs less than that of the slave. All this is good 
news and should be spread through the land ; for 
men are especially inclined to be just, when they 
can serve themselves by justice. But Emancipation 
rests on higher ground than the master's accumula- 
tion, even on the rights and essential interests of the 
slave. And let these be held sacred, though the 
luxury of the master be retrenched. 



2. I have now finished my remarks on a topic which 
was always present to the mind of our author — the 
alleged decrease of industry and exports since 



47 



Emancipation. The next topic to which I shall 
turn, is his notice of slavery in Cuba. He only- 
touched at this Island, but evidently received the 
same sad impression which we receive from those 
who have had longer time for observation. He says : 

" Of one feature in the slave trade and slavery of 
Cuba, I had no knowledge until I was on the spot. 
The importation consists almost entirely of vien, and 
we were informed that on many of the estates, not 
a single female is to be found. Natural increase is 
disregarded. The Cubans import the stronger ani- 
mals, like bullocks, work them up, and then seek a 
fresh supply. This surely is a system of most un- 
natural barbarity." 

This barbarity is believed to be unparalleled. 
The young African, torn from home and his na- 
tive shore, is brought to a plantation, where he 
is never to know a home. All the relations of 
domestic life are systematically denied him. Wo- 
man's countenance he is not to look upon. The 
child's voice, he is no more to hear. His owner finds 
it more gainful to import than to breed slaves ; and 
still more has made the sad discovery, that it is 
cheaper to " work up" the servile laborer in his 
youth and to replace him by a new victim, than to 
let him grow old in moderate toil. I have been told 
by some of the most recent travellers in Cuba who 



48 



gave particular attention to the subject*, that in the 
sugar making season, the slaves are generally allowed 
but four out of the twenty four hours, for sleep. From 
these too I learned, that a gang of slaves is used up 
in ten years. Of the young men imported from 
Africa, one out of ten dies yearly. To supply this 
enormous waste of life, above twenty five thousand 
slaves are imported from Africaf , in vessels so crowd- 
ed, that sometimes one quarter, sometimes one 
half of the wretched creatures bought in Africa 
perish in agony before reaching land. It is to be 
feared, that Cuban slavery, traced from the moment 
when the African touches the deck, to the happier 
moment wiien he finds his grave on the ocean or 
the plantation, includes an amount of crime and 
misery not to be paralleled in any portion of the 



* My accounts from Cuba have been received from Dr. Mad- 
den and David Turnbull, Esq. ; the former, one of the British 
commissioners, resident at Havana to enforce the treaty with 
Spain in relation to the slave trade ; the latter, a gentleman who 
visited Cuba chiefly if not solely to enquire into slavery. Mr. 
Turnbull's account of Cuba, in his " Travels in the West," de- 
serves to be read. The reports of such men, confirmed in a 
very important particular by Mr. Gurney, have an authority, 
which obliges me to speak as I have done of the slave-system of 
this island. If indeed (what is most unlikely,) they have fallen 
into errors on the subject, these can easily be exposed, and I 
shall rejoice in being the means of bringing out the truth. 

t There are different estimates of the number, some making it 
much greater than the text. 



49 



globe, civilized or savage. And there are more rea- 
sons than one why I would bring this horrid pic- 
ture before the minds of my countrymen. We, We, 
do much to sustain this system of horror and blood. 
The Cuban slave trade is carried on in vessels built 
especially for this use in American ports. These 
vessels often sail under the American flag, and are 
aided by American merchant-men, and, as is feared, 
by American capital. And this is not all ; the sugar, 
in producing of which so many of our fellow crea- 
tures perish miserably, is shipped in great quantities 
to this country. We are the customers, who stimu- 
late by our demands this infernal cruelty. And 
knowing this, shall we become accessories to the 
murder of our brethren, by continuing to use the 
fruit of the hard-wrung toil which destroys them ? 
The sugar of Cuba comes to us drenched with hu- 
man blood. So we ought to see it and to turn from 
it with loathing. The guilt which produces it, 
ought to be put down by the spontaneous, instinc- 
tive horror of the civilized world. 

There is another fact worthy attention. It is 
said, that most of the plantations in Cuba, which 
have been recently brought under cultivation, be- 
long to Americans, that the number of American 
slave-holders is increasing rapidly on the Island, 
and consequently that the importation of human 
cargoes from Africa finds much of its encourage- 
5 



50 



raent from the citizens of our republic. It is not 
easy to speak in measured terms of this enormity. 
For men born and brought up amidst slavery many 
apologies may be made. But men, born beyond the 
sound of the lash, brought up where human rights 
are held sacred, who, in face of all the light thrown 
now on slavery, can still deal in human flesh, can 
become customers of the " felon " who tears the Af- 
rican from his native shore, and can with open eyes 
inflict this deepest wrong for gain and gain alone — 
such " have no cloak for their sin." Men so hard of 
heart, so steeled against the reproofs of conscience, 
so intent on thriving though it be by the most cruel 
wrongs, are not to be touched by human expostula- 
tion and rebuke. But if any should tremble before 
Almighty justice, ought not they 1 

There is another reason for dwelhng on this top- 
ic. It teaches us the little reliance to be placed on 
the impressions respecting slavery brought home by 
superficial observers. We have seen what slavery 
is in Cuba ; and yet men of high character from this 
country, who have visited that island, have returned 
to tell us of the mildness of the system. Men, 
who would cut off their right hand, sooner than 
withdraw the sympathy of others from human suffer- 
ing, have virtually done so, by their representation of 
the kindly working of slavery on the very spot 
where it exists with peculiar horrors. They have 



51 



visited some favored plantation, been treated with 
hospitality, seen no tortures, heard no shrieks, and 
then come home to reprove those who set forth in- 
dignantly the wrongs of the slave. And what is 
true with regard to the visitors of the West Indies, 
applies to those who visit our southern states. Hav- 
ing witnessed slavery in the families of some of the 
most enlightened and refined inhabitants, they re- 
turn to speak of it as no very fearful thing. Had 
they inquired about the state of society through the 
whole country, and learned that more than one fourth 
of the inhabitants cannot write their own names, 
they would have forborne to make a few selected 
families the representative of the community, and 
might have believed in the possibility of some of 
the horrid details recorded in " Slavery as it is." 
For myself, I do not think it worth my while to in- 
quire into the merits of slavery in this or that region. 
It is enough for me to know, that one human being 
holds other human beings as his property, subject to 
his arbitrary and irresponsible will, and compels 
them to toil for his luxury and ease. I know 
enough of men, to know what the workings of such 
a system on a large scale must be ; and I hold my 
understanding insulted when men talk to me of its 
humanity. If there be one truth of history taught 
more plainly than any other, it is the tendency of 
human nature to abuse power. To protect our- 



52 



selves against power, to keep this in perpetual check 
by dividing it among many hands, by limiting its du- 
ration, by defining its action with sharp lines, by 
watching it jealously, by holding it responsible for 
abuses, this is the grand aim and benefit of the social 
institutions, which are our chief boast. Arbitrary, 
unchecked power, is the evil against which all expe- 
rience cries out so loudly, that apologies for it may 
be dismissed without a hearing. But admit the plea 
of its apologists. Allow slavery to be ever so hu- 
mane. Grant that the man who owns me, is ever 
go kind. The wrong of him who presumes to talk 
of owning me is too unmeasured to be softened by 
kindness. There are wrongs which can be redeem- 
ed by no kindness. Because a man treads on me 
with velvet foot, must I be content to grovel in the 
earth. Because he gives me meat as well as bread, 
whilst he takes my child and sells it into a land where 
my chained limbs cannot follow, must I thank him 
for his kindness ? I do not envy those who think 
slavery no very pitiable a lot, provided its nakedness 
be covered and its hunger regularly appeased. 

It is worthy of consideration, that the slave's lot 
does not improve with the advance of what is called 
civilization, that is, of trade and luxuries. Slavery 
is such a violation of nature, that it is an excep- 
tion to the general law of progress. In rude 
states of society, when men's wants and employ- 



53 



ments are few, and trade and other means of gain 
hardly exist, the slave leads a comparatively easy 
life ; he partakes of the general indolence. He 
lives in the family much as a member, and is op- 
pressed by no great disparity of rank. But when 
society advances, and wants multiply, and the lust 
of gain springs up, and prices increase, the slave's 
lot grows harder. He is viewed more and more as 
a machine to be used for profit, and is tasked like the 
beast of burden. The distance between him and 
his master increases, and he has less and less of the 
spirit of a man. He may have better food, but it 
is that he may work the more. He may be whip- 
ped less passionately or frequently ; but it is, be- 
cause the never varying routine of toil and the more 
skilful discipline which civilization teaches, have 
subdued him more completely. Thus to the slave 
it is no gain that the community grow richer and 
more luxurious. He has an interest in the return 
of society to barbarism, for in this case he would 
come nearer the general level. He would escape 
the peculiar ignominy and accumulated burdens 
which he has to bear in civilized life. 



3. I pass to another topic suggested by Mr.Gurney's 
book. What is it, let me ask, which has freed the 
West India slave, and is now raising him to the dig- 

5* 



54 



nity of a man ? The answer is most cheering. The 
great Emancipator has been Christianity. Pohcy, in- 
terest, state-craft, church -craft, the low motives which 
have originated other revolutions, have not worked 
here. From the times of Clarkson and Wilberforce, 
down to the present day, the friends of the slave, who 
have pleaded his cause and broken his chains, have 
been Christians ; and it is from Christ the divine 
philanthropist, from the inspiration of his cross, that 
they have gathered faith, hope, and love for the 
conflict. This illustration of the spirit and power 
of Christianity, is a bright addition to the evidences 
of its truth. We have here the miracle of a great 
nation, rising in its strength, not for conquest, not to 
assert its own rights, but to free and elevate the 
most despised and injured race on earth ; and as this 
stands alone in human history, so it recals to us those 
wonderful works of mercy and power, by which the 
divinity of our religion was at first confirmed. 

It is with deep sorrow, that I am compelled to 
turn to the contrast between religion in England 
and religion in America. There it vindicates the 
cause of the oppressed. Here it rivets the chain 
and hardens the heart of the oppressor. At the 
South, what is the Christian ministry doing for the 
slave ? Teaching the rightfulness of his yoke, join- 
ing in the cry against the men who plead for his 



65 



greatest offence against his children. This is the 
saddest view, presented by the conflict with slavery. 
The very men, whose office it is to plead against all 
wrong, to enforce the obligation of impartial, inflexi- 
ble justice, to breathe the spirit of universal brotherly 
love, to resist at all hazards the spirit and evil cus- 
toms of the world, to live and to die under the ban- 
ner of Christian truth, have enlisted under the stan- 
dard of slavery. Had they merely declined to 
bring the subject into the Church, on the ground of 
the presence of the slave, they would have been justifi- 
ed. Had they declined to discuss it through the press 
and in conversation, on the ground that the public 
mind was too furious to bear the truth, they would 
have been approved by multitudes ; though it is 
wisest for the minister to resign his office, when 
it can only be exercised under menace and un- 
righteous restraint, and to go where with unsealed 
lips he may teach and enforce human duty in its 
full extent. But the ministers at the South have 
not been content with silence. The majority of them 
are understood to have given their support to sla- 
very, to have thrown their weight into the scale of 
the master. That in so doing, they have belied 
their clear convictions, that they have preached 
known falsehood, we do not say. Few ministers of 
Christ, wetrustjcan teach what their deliberate judg- 
ments condemn. But in cases like the present, how 



66 



common is it for the judgment to receive a shape 
and hue from self interest, from private affection, 
from the tyranny of opinion and the passions of the 
muhitude ! Few^ ministers, we trust, can sin against 
clear, steady light. But how common is it for the 
mind to waver and to be obscured in regard to 
scorned and persecuted truth ! When we look be- 
yond the bounds of slavery, we find the civilized 
and Christian world with few exceptions reprobating 
slavery, as at war with the precepts and spirit of 
Christ. But at the South, his ministers sustain it as 
consistent with justice, equity, and disinterested love. 
Can we help saying, that the loud, menacing, pop- 
ular voice has proved too strong for the servants of 
Christ ? 

We hoped better things than this, because the 
prevalent sects at the South are the Methodists and 
Baptists, and these were expected to be less tainted 
by a worldly spirit, than other denominations in 
which luxury and fashion bear greater sway. But 
the Methodists, forgetful of their great founder, 
who cried aloud against slavery and spared not ; 
and the Baptists, forgetful of the sainted name of 
Roger Williams, whose love of the despised Indian, 
and whose martyr spirit should have taught them 
fearless sympathy with the negro, have been found 
in the ranks of the foes of freedom. Indeed their 
allegiance to slavery seems to know no bounds. 



57 



A Baptist association at the South decreed, that a 
slave, sold at a distance from his wife, might marry 
again in obedience to his master ; and that he would 
even do wrong, to disobey in this particular. Thus 
one of the plainest precepts of Christianity has 
been set at nought. Thus the poor slave is taught 
to renounce his wife, however dear, to rupture the 
most sacred social tie, that, like the other animals, 
he may keep up the stock of the estate. The 
general Methodist Conference during this very year, 
have decreed, that the testimony of a colored mem- 
ber of their churches should not be received against 
a white member, who may be on trial before an ec- 
clesiastical tribunal. Thus in church affairs, a mul- 
titude of disciples of Jesus Christ, who have been 
received into Christian communion on the ground 
of their spiritual regeneration, who belong, as is be- 
lieved, to the church on earth and in Heaven, are 
put down by their brethren as incapable of recogniz- 
ing the obligation of truth, of performing the most 
common duty of morality, and are denied a privi- 
lege conceded, in worldly affairs, to the most depraved. 
Thus the religion of the South, heaps insult and in- 
jury on the slave. 

And what have the Christians of the North 
done ? We rejoice to say, that from these, have 
gone forth not a few testimonies against slavery. 
Not a few ministers in associations, conventions. 



58 



presbyteries or conferences, have declared the in- 
consistency of the system with the principles of 
Christianity, and with the law of love. Still the 
churches and congregations of the free States, have 
in the main looked coldly on the subject, and dis- 
couraged too effectually the free expression of 
thought and feeling in regard to it by the religious 
teacher. Under that legislation of public opinion, 
which, without courts or offices, sways more des- 
potically than Czars or Sultans, the pulpit and the 
press, have, in no small degree, been reduced to 
silence as to slavery, especially in cities, the chief 
seats of this invisible power. Some fervent spirits 
among us, seeing religion, in this and other cases, 
so ready to bend to worldly opinion, have been fill- 
ed with indignation. They have spoken of Chris- 
tianity, as having no life here, as a beautiful corpse, 
laid out in much state, worshipped with costly hom- 
age, but worshipped very much as were the pro- 
phets, whose tombs were so ostentatiously garnished 
in the times of the Savior. But this is unjust. 
Christianity lives and acts among us. It imposes 
many salutary restraints. It inspires many good 
deeds. There are not a few, in whom it puts forth a 
power, worthy of its better days, and the number 
of such is growing. Let us not be ungrateful for 
what this religion is doing, nor shut our ears against 
the prophecies which the present gives of its future 
triumphs. Still, as a general rule, the Christianity 



59 



of this day falls fearfully short of the Christianity 
of the immediate followers of our Lord. Then, 
the meaning of a Christian was, that he look the 
cross and followed Christ, that he counted not his 
life dear to him in the service of God and man, that 
he trod the world under his feet. Now we ask 
leave of the world, how far we shall follow Christ. 
What wrong or abuse is there, which the bulk of the 
people may think essential to their prosperity and 
may defend with outcry and menace, before which 
the Christianity of this age will not bow ? We need 
a new John, who, with the untamed and solemn en- 
ergy of the wilderness, shall cry out among us, Re- 
pent. We need that the Crucified should speak to 
us with a more startling voice, '* He that forsak- 
eth not all things, and follovveth me, cannot be my 
disciple." We need that the all-sacrificing, all-sym- 
pathising spirit of Christianity, should cease to bow 
to the spirit of the world. We need that, under a 
deep sense of want and wo, the church should cry 
out, " Thy kingdom come," and with holy importu- 
nity should bring down new strength, and life, and 
love from Heaven. 

4. I pass to another topic, suggested by Mr. Gur- 
ney's book. According to this and all the books 
written on the subject, Emancipation has borne a 
singular testimony to the noble elements of the ne 



60r 



gro character. It may be doubted, whether any 
other race would have borne this trial, as well as 
they. Before the day of freedom came, the West 
Indies and this country foreboded fearful conse- 
quences from the sudden transition of such a multi- 
tude from bondage to liberty. Revenge, massacre, 
unbridled lust, were to usher in the grand festival of 
Emancipation, which was to end in the breaking out 
of a new Pandemonium on earth. Instead of this, 
the holy day of liberty was welcomed by shouts and 
tears of gratitude. The liberated negroes did not 
hasten as Saxon serfs in like circumstances might 
have done, to haunts of intoxication, but to the 
house of God. Their rude churches were thronged. 
Their joy found utterance in prayers and hymns. 
History contains no record more touching, than the 
account of the religious, tender thankfulness which 
this vast boon awakened in the negro breast. And 
what followed ? Was this beautiful emotion an 
evanescent transport, soon to give way to ferocity 
and vengeance ? It was natural for masters, who 
had inflicted causeless stripes, and filled the cup of 
the slaves with bitterness, to fear their rage after 
liberation. But the overwhelming joy of freedom 
having subsided, they returned to labor. Not even 
a blow was struck in the excitement of that vast 
change. No violation of the peace required the 
interposition of the magistrate. The new relation 



61 



was assumed easily, quietly, without an act of vio- 
lence ; and, since that time, in the short space of 
two years, how much have they accomplished ? 
Beautiful villages have grown up. Little freeholds 
have been purchased. The marriage tie has be- 
come sacred. The child is educated. Crime has 
diminished. There are islands, where a greater 
proportion of the young are trained in schools, than 
among the whites of the slave States. I ask, whether 
any other people on the face of the earth, would 
have received and used the infinite blessing of liberty 
so well. 

The history of West Indian Emancipation teaches 
us, that we are holding in bondage one of the best 
races of the human family. The negro is among the 
mildest, gentlest of men. He is singularly suscep- 
tible of improvement from abroad. His children, it 
is said, receive more rapidly than ours the elements 
of knowledge. How far he can originate improve- 
ments, time only can teach. His nature is affec- 
tionate, easily touched ; and hence he is more open 
to religious impression than the white man. The 
European race have manifested more courage, enter- 
prise, invention ; but in the dispositions which Chris- 
tianity particularly honors, how inferior are they to 
the African ! When I cast my eyes over our South- 
ern region, the land of Bowie knives, lynch law, 
and duels, of "chivalry," honor, and revenge; and 
6 



62 



when I consider that Christianity is declared to be 
a spirit of charity, •' which seeketh not its own, 
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil and endureth 
all things," and is also declared to be " the wisdom 
from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gen- 
tle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
fruits ; " can I hesitate in deciding, to which of the 
races in that land Christianity is most adapted, and 
in which its noblest disciples are most likely to be 
reared ? It may be said, indeed, of all the Euro- 
pean nations, that they are distinguished by qualities 
opposed to the spirit of Christianity ; and it is one 
of the most remarkable events of history, that the 
religion of Jesus should have struck root among 
them. As yet it has not subdued them. The 
"law of honor," the strongest of all laws in the 
European race, is, to this day, directly hostile to the 
character and word of Christ. The African carries 
within him, much more than we, the germs of a 
meek, long-suffering, loving virtue. A short resi- 
dence among the negroes in the West Indies im- 
pressed me with their capacity of improvement. 
On all sides I heard of their religious tendencies, 
the noblest in human nature. I saw, too, on the 
plantation where I resided, a gracefulness and dig- 
nity of form and motion, rare in my own native New 
England. And this is the race which has been 
selected to be trodden down and confounded with 



63 



the brutes ! Undoubtedly the negroes are debased ; 
for were slavery not debasing, I should have little 
quarrel with it. But let not their degradation be 
alleged in proof of peculiar incapacity of moral 
elevation. They are given to theft; but there is no 
peculiar aggravated guilt, in stealing from those by 
whom they are robbed of all their rights and their 
very persons. They are given to falsehood ; but 
this is the very effect produced by oppression on the 
Irish peasantry. They are undoubtedly sensual ; 
and yet the African countenance seldom shows that 
coarse, brutal sensuality, which is so common in the 
face of the white man. I should expect from the 
African race, if civilized, less energy, less courage, 
less intellectual originality than in our race, but 
more amiableness, tranq lillity, gentleness, and con- 
tent. They might not rise to an equality in out- 
ward condition, but would probably be a much 
happier race. There is no reason for holding such 
a race in chains ; they need no chain to make them 
harmless.* 

In the remarks now made I have aimed only to 
express my sympathy with the wronged. As to 
the white population of the South, I have no inten- 
tion to disparage it. I have no undue partiality to 
the North ; for I believe, that were northern men 

* See note at the end. 



64 



slave-holders, and satisfied that they could grow 
richer by slave than by free labor, not a few would 
retain their property in human flesh with as reso- 
lute and furious a grasp as their southern brethren. 
In truth, until the cotton culture had intoxicated 
the minds of the South with golden dreams, that 
part of the country seemed less tainted by cupidity 
than our own. The character of that region is 
still a mixed one, impulsive, passionate, vindictive, 
sensual ; but frank, courageous, self-relying, enthu- 
siastic, and capable of great sacrifices for a friend. 
Could the withering influence of Slavery be with- 
drawn, the Southern character, though less consist- 
ent, less based on principle, would be more attractive 
and lofty than that of the North. The South is 
fond of calling itself Anglo-Saxon. Judging from 
character, I should say that this name belongs much 
more to the North, the country of steady, perse- 
vering, unconquerable energy. Our Southern breth- 
ren remind me more of the Normans. They seem 
to have in their veins the burning blood of that 
pirate race, who spread terror through Europe, who 
seized part of France as a prey, and then pounced 
on England ; a conquering, chivalrous race, from 
which most of the noble families of England are 
said to be derived. There were certainly noble 
traits in the Norman character, such as its enthusiasm, 
its defiance of peril by sea and land, its force of will, 



65 



its rude sense of honor. But the man of Norman 
spirit, or Norman blood, should never be a slave- 
holder. He is the last man to profit by this rela- 
tion. His pride and fierce passions need restraint, 
not perpetual nourishment ; whilst his indisposition 
to labor, his desire to live by others' toil, demands 
the stern pressure of necessity to rescue him from 
dishonorable sloth. Under kindlier influences he 
may take rank among the noblest of his race. 

However, in looking at the South, the first thing 
which strikes my eyes is not the Anglo-Saxon or 
the Norman, but the Slave. I overlook the dwell- 
ings of the rich. My thoughts go to the comfort- 
less hut of the negro. They go to the dark mass 
at work in the fields. That injured man is my 
brother, and ought not my sympathies to gather 
round him peculiarly? Talk not to me of the 
hospitality, comforts, luxuries of the planter's man- 
sion. These are all the signs of a mighty wrong. 
My thoughts turn first to the slave. I would not, 
however, exaggerate his evils. He is not the most 
unhappy man on that soil. True, his powers are 
undeveloped ; but therefore he is incapable of the 
guilt which others incur. He has, as we have seen, 
a generous nature, and his day of improvement, 
though long postponed, is to come. When I see 
by his side (and is the sight very rare?) the self- 
indulgent man who, from mere love of gain and 
6* 



66 



ease, extorts his sweat, I think of the fearful words 
which the Savior has put into the hps of the He- 
brew patriarch in the unseen world, " Thou in thy 
life time receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus evil 
things ; but now he is comforted and thou art tor- 
mented." Distinctions founded on wrong endure 
but for a day. Could we now penetrate the future 
world, what startling revelations would be made to 
us ! Before the all-seeing impartial justice of God, 
we should see every badge of humiliation taken off 
from the fallen, crushed, and enslaved ; and where, 
where would the selfish, unfeeling oppressor ap- 
pear ! 



5. 1 shall advert but to one more topic suggested by 
Mr. Gurney's book ; I refer to the kind and respect- 
ful manner in which he speaks of many slave-hold- 
ers. He has no sympathy with those, who set down 
this class of men indiscriminately as the chief of 
sinners, but speaks with satisfaction of examples of 
piety and virtue which he found in their number. 
By some among us this lenity will be ascribed to 
his desire to win for himself golden opinions ; but 
he deserves no such censure. The opinion of 
slave-holders is of no moment to him ; for he has 
left them forever, and returns to his own country, 
where his testimony to their worth will find no 



67 



sympathy, but expose him to suspicion, perhaps to 
reproach. Of the justice of his judgment I have 
no doubt. Among slave-holders there may be and 
there are good men. But the inferences from this 
judgment are often false and pernicious. There is 
a common disposition to connect the character of the 
slave-holder and the character of slavery. Many at 
the North, who by intercourse of business or friend- 
ship have come to appreciate the good qualities of 
individuals at the South, are led to the secret if not 
uttered inference, that a system sustained by such 
people can be no monstrous thing. They repel in- 
dignantly the invectives of the Abolitionists against 
the master, and by a natural process go on to ques- 
tion or repel their denunciation of slavery. Here 
lies the secret of much of the want of just feeling 
in regard to this institution. People become recon- 
ciled to it in a measure by the virtues of its sup- 
porters. I will not reply to this error by insisting 
that the virtues, which grow up under slavery, bear 
a small proportion to the vices which it feeds. I 
take a broader ground. I maintain that we can 
never argue safely from the character of a man to 
the system he upholds. It is a solemn truth, not 
yet understood as it should be, that the worst insti- 
tutions may be sustained, the worst deeds performed, 
the most merciless cruellies inflicted by the consci- 
entious and the good. History teaches no truth more 



68 



awful, and proofs of it crowd on us from the records 
of the earliest and latest times. Thus, the worship of 
the immoral deities of heathenism was sustained by 
the great men of antiquity. The bloodiest and 
most unrighteous wars have been instigated by 
patriots. For ages the Jews were thought to have 
forfeited the rights of men, as much as the African 
race at the South, and were insulted, spoiled, and 
slain, not by mobs, but by sovereigns and prelates, 
who really supposed themselves avengers of the 
crucified Savior. Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, 
men of singular humanity, doomed Christians to 
death, surrendering their better feelings to what 
they thought the safety of the State. Few names 
in history are more illustrious than Isabella of Cas- 
tile. She was the model in most respects of a 
noble woman. But Isabella outstripped her age 
in what she thought pious zeal against heretics. 
Having taken lessons in her wars against the Moors, 
and in the extermination of the Jews, she entered 
fully into the spirit of the inquisition ; and by her 
great moral power contributed more than any other 
sovereign to the extension of its fearful influence, 
and thus the horrible tortures and murders of that 
infernal institution, in her ill-fated country, lie very 
much at her door. Of all the causes which have 
contributed to the ruin of Spain, the gloomy, unre- 
lenting spirit of religious bigotry has wrought most 



69 



deeply ; so that the illustrious Isabella, through her 
zeal for religion and the salvation of her subjects, 
sowed the seeds of her country's ruin. It is re- 
markable that Spain, in her late struggle for free- 
dom, has not produced one great man ; and at this 
moment, the country seems threatened with disor- 
ganization ; and it is to the almost universal corrup- 
tion, to the want of mutual confidence, to the deep 
dissimulation and fraud which the spirit of the in- 
quisition, the spirit of misguided religion, has spread 
through society, that this degradation must chiefly be 
traced. The wrongs, woes, cruelties inflicted by 
the rehgious, the conscientious, are among the most 
important teachings of the past. Nor has this 
strange mixture of good and evil ceased. Crimes, 
to which time and usage have given sanction, are 
still found in neighborhood with virtue. Exam- 
ples, taken from other countries, stagger belief, but 
are true. Thus, in not a few regions, the infant is 
cast out to perish by parents who abound in tender- 
ness to their surviving children. Our own enor- 
mities are to be understood hereafter. Slavery is 
not then absolved of guilt by the virtues of its sup- 
porters, nor are its wrongs on this account a whit 
less tolerable. The inquisition was not a whit less 
infernal, because sustained by Isabella. Wars are 
not a whit less murderous, because waged for our 
country's glory; nor was the slave trade less a com- 



70 



plication of unutterable cruelties, because our fathers 
brought the African here to make him a Christian. 

The great truth, now insisted on, that evil is evil, 
no matter at whose door it lies, and that men acting 
from conscience and religion may do nefarious deeds, 
needs to be better understood, that we may not 
shelter ourselves or our institutions under the names 
of the great or the good who have passed away. It 
shows us, that in good company we may do the work 
of fiends. It teaches us, how important is the cul- 
ture of our whole moral and rational nature, how 
dangerous to rest on the old and the established 
without habitually and honestly seeking the truth. 
With these views, I believe at once that slavery is 
an atrocious wrong, and yet that among its uphold- 
ers may be found good and pious people. I do not 
look on a slave country as one of the provinces of 
Hell. There, as elsewhere, the human spirit may 
hold communion with God, and it may ascend thence 
to Heaven. Still slavery does not lay aside its hor- 
rible nature because of the character of some of its 
supporters. Persecution is a cruel outrage, no mat- 
ter by whom carried on, and so slavery, no matter 
by whom maintained, works fearful evil to bond and 
free. It breathes a moral taint, contaminates young 
and old, prostrates the dearest rights, and strength- 
ens the cupidity, pride, love of power, and selfish 
sloth on which it is founded. I readily grant, that 



71 



among slave-holders are to be found upright, religious 
men, and especially pious, gentle, disinterested, no- 
ble-minded women, who sincerely labor to be the 
guardians and benefactors of the slaves, and under 
whose kind control much comfort may be enjoyed. 
But we must not on this account shut our eyes on 
the evils of the institution or forbear to expose them. 
On the contrary, this is the very reason for lifting 
up our voices against It ; for slavery rests mainly on 
the virtues of its upholders. Without the sanction 
of good and great names it would soon die. Were 
it left as a monopoly to the selfish, cruel, unprinci- 
pled, it could not stand a year. It would become 
in men's view as infamous as the slave trade, and be 
ranked among felonies. It is a solemn duty to speak 
plainly of wrongs, which good men perpetrate. It is 
very easy to cry out against crimes which the laws 
punish, and which popular opinion has branded 
with infamy. What is especially demanded of the 
Christian Is, a faithful, honest, generous testimony 
against enormities which are sanctioned by numbers, 
and fashion, and wealth, and especially by great and 
honored names, and which, thus sustained, lift up 
their heads to Heaven, and repay rebuke with men- 
ace and indignation. 

I know that there are those who consider all 
acknowledgement of the virtues of slave-holders as 
treachery to the cause of freedom. But truth is 



72 



truth, and must always be spoken and trusted. To 
be just is a greater work than to free slaves or prop- 
agate religion, or save souls. I have faith in no 
policy but that of simplicity and godly sincerity. 
The crimes of good men in past times, of which I 
have spoken, have sprung chiefly from the dispo- 
sition to sacrifice the simple primary obligations of 
truth, justice, and humanity, to some grand cause, 
such as religion or country, which has dazzled and 
bewildered their moral sense. To free the slave, 
let us not wrong his master. Let us rather find 
comfort in the thought, that there is no unmixed evil, 
that a spirit of goodness mixes more or less with the 
worst usages, and that even slavery is illumined by 
the virtues of the bond and free. 



I have now finished my remarks on Mr. Gurney's 
book, and in doing so I join with many readers in 
thanking him for the good news he has reported, 
and in repeating his prayers for the success of Eman- 
cipation. I now proceed to a different order of con- 
siderations of great importance, and which ought 
always to be connected with such discussions as 
have now engaged us. The subject before us is 
not one of mere speculation. It has a practical 
side. There are Duties which belong to us as Indi- 
viduals, and as Free States, in regard to slavery. To 
these I now ask attention. 



73 



I begin with individuals ; and their duty is, to be 
faithful in their testimony against this great evil, to 
speak their minds freely and fully, and thus to con- 
tribute what they may to the moral power of public 
opinion. It is not enough to think and feel justly. 
Sentiments not expressed, slumber and too often die. 
Utterance in some form or other is a principal duty 
of a social being. The chief good which an enlight- 
ened virtuous mind can do is to bring itself forth. Not 
a few among us have refrained from this duty, have 
been speechless in regard to slavery, through disap- 
probation of what they have called the violence of 
the Abolitionists. They have said, that in this rage 
of the elements it was fit to be still. But the storm 
is passing away. Abolitionism, in obedience to an 
irresistible law of our nature, has parted with much 
of its original vehemence. All noble enthusiasms 
pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and 
more serene. Still more, the power of the Anti- 
slavery Associationis not a little broken by internal 
divisions, and by its increasing reliance on political 
action. It has thrown away its true strength, that 
is, moral influence, in proportion as it has consented 
to mix in the frays of party. Now then, when 
associations are waning, it is time for the individual 
to be heard, time for a free solemn protest against 
wrong. 

It is often said, that all moral efforts to forward 
7 



74 



the abolition of slavery are futile ; that to expect 
men to sacrifice interest to duty is a proof of in- 
sanity ; that, as long as slavery is a good pecuniary 
speculation, the South will stand by it to the death ; 
that whenever slave labor shall prove a drug, it will 
be abandoned, and not before. It is vain, we are 
told, to talk, reason, or remonstrate. On this 
ground some are anxious to bring East India cotton 
into competition with the Southern, that, by driving 
the latter from the market, the excessive stimulus to 
slave breeding and the profits of slave labor may 
cease. And is this true ? Must men be starved 
into justice and humanity ? Have truth, and religion, 
and conscience no power? One thing w^e know, 
that the insanity of opposing moral influence to 
deep-rooted evils, has at least great names on its 
side. The Christian faith is the highest fonn of 
this madness and folly, and its history shows that 
"the foolishness of God is stronger than men." 
What an insult is it on the South and on human 
nature, to believe, that millions of slave-holders, of 
all ages, sexes, and conditions, in an age of freedom, 
intelligence, and Christian faith, are proof against 
all motives but the very lowest. Even in the most 
hardened, conscience never turns wholly to stone. 
Humanity never dies out among a people. After 
all, the most prevailing voice on earth is that of 
truth. Could Emancipation be extorted only by 



75 



depreciation of slave labor, it would indeed be a 
good ; but how much happier a relation would the 
master establish with the colored race, if from no 
force but that of principle and kindness he should 
set them free ? Undoubtedly at the South, as else- 
where, the majority are selfish, mercenary, corrupt; 
but it would be easy to find there more than " ten 
righteous," to find a multitude of upright, compas- 
sionate, devout minds, which, if awakened from the 
long insensibility of habit to the evils of slavery, 
would soon overpower the influences of the merely 
selfish slave-holder. 

We are told, indeed, by the South, that slavery is 
no concern of ours, and consequently that the less 
we say of it the better. What ! shall the wrong- 
doer forbid lookers on to speak, because the affair 
is a private one, in which others must not interfere ? 
Whoever injures a man binds all men to remon- 
strate, especially when the injured is too weak to 
speak in his own behalf. Let none imagine, that by 
seizing a fellow-creature and setting him apart as a 
chattel, they can sever his ties to God or man. 
Spiritual connexions are not so easily broken. You 
may carry your victim ever so far, you may seclude 
him on a plantation or in a cell. But you cannot 
transport him beyond the sphere of human brother- 
hood, or cut him off from his race. The great 
bond of humanity is the last to be dissolved. Other 



•J6 



ties, those of family and civil society, are severed 
by death. This, founded as it is on what is immor- 
tal in our nature, has an everlasting sacredness, and 
is never broken ; and every man has a right and 
still more is bound to lift up his voice against its 
violation. 

There are many whose testimony against slavery 
is very much diluted by the fact of its having been 
so long sanctioned, not only by usage, but by law, 
by public force, by the forms of civil authority. 
They bow before numbers and prescription. But 
in an age of enquiry and innovation, when other in- 
stitutions must make good their title to continuance, 
it is a suspicious tenderness, which fears to touch a 
heavy yoke, because it has grown by time into the 
necks of our fellow-creatures. Do we not know 
that unjust monopolies, cruel prejudices, barbarous 
punishments, oppressive institutions, have been up- 
held by law for ages ? Majorities are prone to think 
that they can create right by vote, and can legalize 
gainful crimes by calling the forms of justice to their 
support. But these conspiracies against humanity, 
these insults offered to the majesty and immutable- 
ness of truth and rectitude, are the last forms of 
wickedness to be spared. Selfish men, by combin- 
ing into a majority, cannot change tyranny into 
right. The whole earth may cry out, that this or 
that man was made to be owned and used as a chat- 



77 



tel, or a brute, by his brother. But his birthright 
as a man, as a rational creature of God, cleaves to 
him untouched by the clamor. Crimes, exalted 
into laws, become therefore the more odious, just as 
the false gods of heathenism, when set up of old 
on the altar of Jehovah, shocked his true worship- 
pers the more, by usurping so conspicuously the 
honors due to him alone. 

It is important, that we should each of us bear our 
conscientious testimony against slavery, not only to 
swell that tide of public opinion, which is to sweep 
it away, but that we may save ourselves from sink- 
ing into silent, unsuspected acquiescence in the evil. 
A constant resistance is needed to this downward 
tendency, as is proved by the tone of feeling in the 
free states. What is more common among our- 
selves, than a courteous, apologetic disapprobation 
of slavery, which differs little from taking its part. 
This is one of its worst influences. It taints the 
whole country. The existence, the perpetual pres- 
ence of a great, prosperous, unrestrained system of 
wrong in a community, is one of the sorest trials to 
the moral sense of the people, and needs to be ear- 
nestly withstood. The idea of justice becomes un- 
consciously obscured in our minds. Our hearts be- 
come more or less seared to wrong. The South 
says, that slavery is nothing to us at the North. 
But through our trade we are brought into constant 
7* 



78 



contact with it; we grow familiar with it; still more, 
we thrive by it ; and the next step is easy, to consent 
to the sacrifice of human beings, by whom we pros- 
per. The dead know not their want of life, and so 
a people, whose moral sentiments are palsied by the 
interweaving of all their interests with a system of 
oppression, become degraded without suspecting it. 
In consequence of this connection with slave coun- 
tries, the Idea of Human Rights, that great idea of 
our age, and on which we profess to build our insti- 
tutions, is darkened, weakened among us, so as to 
be to many little more than a sound. A country of 
licensed, legalized wrongs, is not the atmosphere in 
which the sentiment of reverence for these rights 
can exist in full power. In such a community, there 
may be a respect for the arbitrary rights, w hich. law. 
creates and may destroy, and a respect for historical 
rights, which rest on usage. But the fundamental 
rights which inhere in man as man, and which lie at 
the foundation of a just, equitable, beneficent, noble 
polity, must be imperfectly comprehended. This 
depression of moral sentiment in a people is an evil, 
the extent of which is not easily apprehended. It 
affects and degrades every relation of life. Men, 
in whose sight human nature is stripped of all its 
rights and dignity, cannot love or honor any who 
possess it, as they ought. In offering these remarks 
I do not forget what I rejoice to know, that there is 



79 



much moral feeling among us in regard to slavery. 
But still there is a strong tendency to indifference, 
and to something worse ; and on this account we 
owe it to our own moral health, and to the moral 
life of society, to express plainly and strongly our 
moral abhorrence of this institution. 

This duty is rendered more urgent by the de- 
praving tendency of our political connections and 
agitations. It has been said much too sweepingly, 
but with some approximation to truth, that in this 
country we have hosts of politicians, but no states- 
men ; meaning, by the latter term, men of compre- 
hensive, far-reaching views, who study the perma- 
nent good of the community, and hold fast under 
all changes to the great principles on which its sal- 
vation rests. The generality of our public men are 
mere politicians, purblind to the future, fevered by 
the present, merging patriotism in party spirit, in- 
tent on carrying a vote or election, no matter what 
means they use or what precedents they establish, 
and holding themselves absolved from a strict mo- 
rality in public affairs. A principal object of politi- 
cal tactics is to conciliate and gain over to one or 
another side the most important interests of the 
country ; and of consequence the slave interest is 
propitiated with no small care. No party can afford 
to lose the South. The master's vote is too precious 
to be hazarded by sympathy with the slaves. Ac- 



80 



cordingly, parties and office-seekers wash their hands 
of abolitionism as if it were treason, and without 
committing themselves to slavery, protest their in- 
nocence of hostility to it. How far they would bow 
to the slave power, were the success of a great 
election to depend on soothing it, cannot be fore- 
told, especially since we have seen the party, most 
jealous of popular rights, surrendering to this 
power the right of petition. In this state of 
things the slave-holding interest has the floor of 
Congress very much to itself. Now and then a 
man of moral heroism meets it with erect front, 
and a tone of conscious superiority. But politi- 
cal life does not abound in men of heroic mould. 
Military heroes may be found in swarms. Thou- 
sands die fearlessly on the field of battle, or the 
field of " honor." But the moral courage, which 
can stand cold looks, frowns, and contempt, which 
asks counsel of higher oracles than people or rulers, 
and cheerfully gives up preferment to a just cause, 
is rare enough to be canonized. In such a country 
the tendency to corruption of moral sentiment in 
regard to slavery, is strong. Many are tempted to 
acquiescence in it ; and of consequence the good 
man, the friend of humanity and his country, should 
meet the danger by strong, uncompromising repro- 
bation of this great wrong. 

I would close this topic with observing, that there 



81 



is one portion of the community, to which I would 
especially commend the cause of the enslaved, and 
the duty of open testimony against this form of op- 
pression ; and that is, our women. To them above 
all others, slavery should seem an intolerable evil, 
because its chief victims are women. In their own 
country, and not very far from them, there are 
great multitudes of their sex exposed to dishonor, 
held as property by man, unprotected by law, driv- 
en to the field by the overseer, and happy if not 
consigned to infinitely baser uses, denied the rights 
of wife and mother, and liable to be stript of hus- 
band and child when another's pleasure or interest 
may so determine. Such is the lot of hundreds of 
thousands of their sisters ; and is there nothing here 
to stir up woman's sympathy, nothing for her to 
remember when she approaches God's throne or 
opens her heart to her fellow creatures ? Woman 
should talk of the enslaved to her husband, and do 
what she can to awaken, amongst his ever thronging 
worldly cares, some manly indignation, some interest 
in human freedom. She should breathe into her 
son a deep sense of the wrongs which man inflicts 
on man, and send him forth from her arms, a friend 
of the weak and injured. She should look on her 
daughter, and shudder at the doom of so many 
daughters on her own shores. When she meets 
with woman, she should talk with her of the ten 



thousand homes which have no defence against Hcen- 
tiousness, against violation of the most sacred do- 
mestic ties; and through lier whole intercourse, the 
fit season should be chosen to give strength to that 
deep moral conviction which can alone overcome 
this tremendous evil. 

I know it will be said, that in thus doing, woman 
will wander beyond her sphere, and forsake her proper 
work. What ! Do I hear such language in a civil- 
ized age, and in a land of Christians. What, let me 
ask, is woman's work ? It is to be a minister of Chris- 
tian love. It is to sympathize with human misery. 
It is to breathe sympathy into man's heart. It is to 
keep alive in society some feeling of human brother- 
hood. This is her mission on earth. Woman's 
sphere, I am told, is home. And why is home in- 
stituted ? Why are domestic relations ordained ? 
These relations are for a day ; they cease at the 
grave. And what is their great end ? To nourish 
a love which will endure forever, to awaken uni- 
versal sympathy. Our ties to our parents are to 
bind us to the Universal Parent. Our fraternal 
bonds to help us to see in all men cur brethren. 
Home is to be a nursery of Christians ; and what is 
the end of Christianity but to awaken in all souls the 
principles of universal justice and universal charity. 
At home we are to learn to love our neighbor, our 
enemy, the stranger, the poor, the oppressed. If 



83 



home do not train us to this, then it is wofully per- 
verted. If home counteract and quench the spirit of 
Christianity, then we must remember the Divine 
Teacher, who commands us to forsake father and 
mother, brother and sister, wife and child, for His 
sake, and for the sake of his truth. If the walls of 
home are the bulwarks of a narrow, clannish love, 
through which the cry of human miseries and 
wrongs cannot penetrate, then it is mockery to talk 
of their sacredness. Domestic life is at present too 
much in hostility to the spirit of Christ. A family 
should be a community of dear friends, strengthening 
one another for the service of their fellow creatures. 
Can we give the name of Christian to most of our 
families ? Can we give it to women, who have no 
thoughts, or sympathies for multitudes of their own 
sex, distant only two or three days' journey from 
their doors, and exposed to outrages, from which 
they would pray to have their own daughters snatch- 
ed, though it were by death. 



Having spoken of the individual, I proceed to 
speak of the duties of the Free States, in their po- 
litical capacity, in regard to slavery ; and these may 
be reduced to two heads, both of them negative. 
The first is, to abstain as rigidly from the use of po- 
litical power against slavery in the States where it 



84 



is established, as from exercising it against slavery- 
in foreign communities. The second is, to free our- 
selves from all obligation to use the powers of the 
national or state governments in any manner what- 
ever for the support of slavery. 

The first duty is clear. In regard to slavery, the 
Southern states stand on the ground of foreign com- 
munities. They are not subject or responsible to us 
more than these. No state-sovereignty can inter- 
meddle with the institutions of another. We might 
as legitimately spread our legislation over the schools, 
churches, or persons of the South, as over their 
slaves. And in regard to the General Government, 
we know that it was not intended to confer any pow- 
er, direct or indirect, on the free, over the slave 
states. Any pretension to such power on the part 
of the North, would have dissolved immediately the 
convention, which framed the constitution. Any 
act of the free states, when assembled in Congress, 
for the abolition of slavery in other states, would be 
a violation of the national compact, and would be 
just cause of complaint. 

On this account I cannot but regret the disposi- 
tion of a part of our abolitionists to organize them- 
selves into a political party. Were it indeed their 
simple purpose to free the North from all obligation 
to give support to slavery, I should agree with them 
in their end, though not in their means. By look- 



85 



ing, as they do, to political organization, as a 
means of putting down the institution in other states, 
they lay themselves open to reproach. I know, in- 
deed, that excellent men are engaged in this move- 
ment, and I acquit them of all disposition to trans- 
cend the limits of the Federal Constitution. But 
it is to be feared, that they may construe this instru- 
ment too literally ; that, forgetting its spirit, they 
may seek to use its powers for purposes very remote 
from its original design. Their failure is almost 
inevitable. By extending their agency beyond its 
true bounds, they ensure its defeat in its legitimate 
sphere. By assuming a political character, they 
lose the reputation of honest enthusiasts, and come 
to be considered as hypocritical seekers after place 
and power. Should they, in opposition to all pro- 
bability, become a formidable party, they would 
unite the slaveholding states as one man ; and the 
South, always able, when so united, to link with 
itself a party at the North, would rule the country 
as before. 

No association, like the abohtionists, formed for a 
particular end, can, by becoming a political organi- 
zation, rise to power. If it can contrive to perpetu- 
ate itself, it will provoke contempt by the dispropor- 
tion of its means to its ends ; but the probability is, 
that it will be swallowed up in the whirlpool of one 
or the other of the great national parties, from 
8 



whose fury hardly any thing escapes. These migh- 
ty forces sweep all lesser political organizations be- 
fore ihem. And these are to be robbed of their per- 
nicious power, not by forming a third party, but by 
the increase of intelligence and virtue in the com- 
munity, and by the silent flowing together of re- 
flecting, upright, independent men, who will feel 
themselves bound to throw off the shackles of 
party ; who will refuse any longer to neutralise their 
moral influence by coalition with the self-seeking, 
the hollow-hearted, and the double-tongued ; whose 
bond of union will be, the solemn purpose to speak 
the truth without adulteration, to adhere to the 
right without compromise, to support good measures 
and discountenance bad, come from what quarter 
they may, to be just to all parties, and to expose 
alike the corruptions of all. There are now among 
us good and true men enough to turn the balance 
on all great questions, would they but confide in 
principle, and be loyal to it in word and deed. 
Under their influence, newspapers might be estab- 
lished, in which men and measures of all parties 
would be tried without fear or favor by the moral. 
Christian law ; and this revolution of the press 
would do more than all things for the political re- 
generation of the country. The people would 
learn from it, that whilst boasting of liberty, they 
are used as puppets and tools ; that popular sove- 



87 



reignty, with all its paper bulwarks, is a show rather 
than a substance, as long as party despotism en- 
dures. It is by such a broad, generous improve- 
ment of society, that our present political organiza- 
tions are to be put down, and not by a third party 
on a narrow basis, and which, instead of embracing 
all the interests of the country, confines itself to a 
single point. 

I cannot but express again regret at the willing- 
ness of the abolitionists to rely on and pursue politi- 
cal power. Their strength has always lain in the 
simplicity of their religious trust, in their confidence 
in Christian truth. Formerly, the hope sometimes 
crossed my mind, that, by enlarging their views and 
purifying their spirit, they would gradually become 
a religious community, founded on the recognition 
of God as the common, equal Father of all man- 
kind, on the recognition of Jesus Christ as having 
lived and died to unite to himself and to baptise 
with his spirit every human soul, and on the recog- 
nition of the brotherhood of all the members of 
God's human family. There are signs that Chris- 
tians are tending, however slowly, toward a church, 
in which these great ideas of Christianity will be 
realized ; in which a spiritual reverence for God, and 
for the human soul, will take place of the customary 
homage paid to outward distinctions ; and in which 
our present narrow sects will be swallowed up. 



J thought, that I saw in the principles with which 
the abolitionists started, a struggling of the human 
mind toward this Christian union. It is truly a dis- 
appointment to see so many of their number 
becoming a political party, an association almost 
always corrupting, and most justly suspected on 
account of the sacrifices of truth, and honor, and 
moral independence, which it extorts even from 
well-disposed men. Their proper work is to act on 
all parties, to support each as far as it shall be true 
to human rights, to gather laborers for the good 
cause from all bodies, civil and religious, and to hold 
forth this cause as a universal interest, and not as the 
property or stepping stone of a narrow association. 

I know that it is said, that nothing but this politi- 
cal action can put down slavery. Then slavery must 
continue ; and if we faithfully do our part as Chris- 
tians, we are not responsible for its continuance. We 
are not to feel, as if we were bound to put it down by 
any and every means. We do not speak as Chris- 
tians, when we say that slavery must and shall fall. 
Who are we to dictate thus to omnipotence ? It 
has pleased the mysterious providence of God, that 
terrible evils should be left to overshadow the 
earth for ages. " How long O Lord ! " has been 
the secret cry extorted from good men by the 
crimes of the w^orld for six thousand years. On 
the philanthropist of this age, the same sad burden 



is laid, and it cannot be removed. We must not 
feel, that were slavery destroyed, paradise would 
be restored. As in our own souls the conquest of 
one evil passion reveals to us new spiritual foes, so 
in society, one great evil hides in its shadow others 
perhaps as fearful, and its fall only summons us to 
new efforts for the redemption of the race. We 
know indeed, that good is to triumph over evil in 
this world ; that " Christ must reign, till he shall 
put all enemies beneath his feet," or until his Spirit 
, shall triumph over the spirit, oppressions, corrup- 

tions of the world. Let us then work against all 
wrong, but with a calm, solemn earnestness, not 
with vehemence and tumult. Let us work with 
deep reverence and filial trust toward God, and not 
in the proud impetuosity of our own wills. Happy 
the day, when such laborers shall be gathered by 
an inward attraction into one church or brotherhood, 
whose badge, creed, spirit, shall be Universal Love. 
This will be the true kingdom of God on earth, and 
its might will infinitely transcend political power. 

For one, I have no desire to force Emancipation 
on the South. Had I political power, I should fear 
to use it in such a cause. A forced Emancipation 
is, on the whole, working well in the West Indies, 
because the mother country watches over and guides 
it, and pours in abundantly moral and religious in- 
fluences to calm, and enlighten, and soften the minds 
8* 



90 



newly set free. Here no such control can be exer- 
cised. Freedom at the South, to work well, must 
be the gift of the masters. Emancipation must be 
their own act and deed. It must spring from good- 
will and sense of justice, or at least from a sense of 
interest, and not be extorted by a foreign power ; 
and with this origin, it will be more successful even 
than the experiment in the West Indies. In those 
islands, especially in Jamaica, the want of cordial 
co-operation on the part of the planters has con- 
tinually obstructed the beneficial working of free- 
dom, and still throws a doubtfulness over its com- 
plete success. 

I have said, that the free States cannot rightfully 
use the power of their own legislatures or of Con- 
gress, to abolish slavery in the States where it is 
established. Their first duty is to abstain from 
such acts. Their next and more solemn duty is to 
abstain from all action for the support of slavery. 
If they are not to subvert much less are they to 
sustain it. There is some excuse for communities, 
when, under a generous impulse, they espouse the 
cause of the oppressed in other states, and by force 
restore their rights ; but they are without excuse in 
aiding other states in binding on men an unright- 
eous yoke. On this subject, our fathers, in framing 
the constitution, swerved from the riojht. We, their 



91 



children, at the end of half a century, see the path 
of duly more clearly than they, and must walk in it. 
To this point the public mind has long been tend- 
ing, and the time has come for looking at it fully, 
dispassionately, and with manly and Christian reso- 
lution. This is not a question of Abolitionism. It 
has nothing to do with putting down slavery. We 
are simply called as communities, to withhold support 
from it, to stand aloof, to break off all connection with 
this criminal institution. The free States ought to say 
to the South, " Slavery is yours not ours, and on 
you the whole responsibility of it must fall. We 
wash our hands of it wholly. We shall exert no 
power against it ; but do not call on us to put forth 
the least power in its behalf. We cannot, directly or 
indirectly, become accessories to this wrong. We 
cannot become jailers, or a patrol, or a watch, to 
keep your slaves under the yoke. You must guard 
them yourselves. If they escape, we cannot send 
them back. Our soil makes whoever touches it, 
free. On this point you must manage your 
own concerns. You must guard your own fron- 
tier. In case of insurrection we cannot come 
to you, save as friends alike of bond and free. 
Neither in our separate legislatures, nor in the 
national legislature, can we touch slavery to sustain 
it. On this point you are foreign communities. 
You have often said, that you need not our protec- 
tion; and we must take you at your word. In so 



92 



doing we have no thought of acting on your fears. 
We think only of our duty, and this, in all circum- 
stances, and at all hazards, must be done." 

The people of the North think but little of the 
extent of the support given to slavery by the Fed- 
eral Government; though, when it is considered 
that " the slave-holding interest has a representation 
in Congress of twenty-Jive members, in addition to 
the fair and equal representation of the free in- 
habitants," it is very natural to expect the exercise 
of the powers of Congress in behalf of this institu- 
tion. The Federal Government has been and is 
the friend of the slave-holder, and the enemy of the 
slave. It authorizes the former to seize, in a free 
state, a colored man, on the ground of being a fugi- 
tive, and to bring him before a justice of peace of 
his own selection ; and this magistrate, without a 
jury, or without obligation to receive any testimony 
but what the professed master offers, can deliver up 
the accused, to be held as property for life. The 
Federal Government authorizes not only the appre- 
hension and imprisonment, in the District of Colum- 
bia, of a negro suspected of being a runaway, but 
the sale of him as a slave, if within a certa nime 
he cannot prove his freedom. It sustains slavery 
within the District of Columbia, though " under its 
exclusive jurisdiction," and allows this district to be 
one of the chief slave-marts of the country. Not a 



93 



slave auction is held there, but by the authority of 
Congress. The Federal Government has endeav- 
ored to obtain, by negociation, the restoration of 
fugitive slaves who have sought and found freedom 
in Canada, and has offered in return to restore fugi- 
tives from the West Indies. It has disgraced itself 
in the sight of all Europe, by claiming as property 
slaves, who have been shipwrecked on the British 
islands, and who by touching British soil had be- 
come free. It has instructed its representative at 
Madrid, to announce to the Spanish court, " that 
the Emancipation of the slave population of Cuba 
would be very severely felt in the adjacent shores 
of the United States." It has purchased a vast 
unsettled territory, which it has given up to be 
overrun with slavery. To crown all, it has, in vio- 
lation of the constitution, and of the right granted 
even by despotism to its subjects, refused to listen 
to petitions against these abuses of power. After 
all this humbling experience, is it not time for the 
free States to pause, to reflect, to weigh well what 
they are doing through the national government, and 
to resolve that they will free themselves from every 
obligation to uphold an institution which they know 
to be unjust.* 

* On the subject of this paragraph, the reader will do well to 
consult " A View of the Action of the Federal Government in 
behalf of Slavery, by William Jay." The author is a son of 
Chief Justice Jay, and a worthy representative of the spirit and 
principles of his illustrious father. 



94 



The object now proposed, is to be effected by- 
amendments of the constitution, and these should 
be sought in good faith ; that is, not as the means of 
abolishing slavery, but as a means of removing us 
from a participation of its guilt. The free States 
should take the high ground of duty ; and to raise 
them to this height, the press, the pulpit, and all 
religious and upright men should join their powers. 
A people under so pure an Impulse, cannot fail. 
Such arrangements should be made, that the word 
slavery need not be heard again in Congress or in 
the local legislatures. On the principle now laid 
down, the question of abolition in the District of 
Columbia should be settled. Emancipation at the 
seat of Government ought to be insisted on, not for 
the purpose of influencing slavery elsewhere, but 
because what is done there is done by the whole 
people, because slavery sustained there is sustained 
by the free States. It is said, that the will of the 
citizens of the District is to be consulted. Were 
this true, which cannot be granted, the difficulty 
may easily be surmounted. Let Congress resolve to 
establish itself where it will have no slavery to con- 
trol or uphold, and the people of the District of 
Columbia will remove the obstacle to its continuance 
where it is, as fast as can be desired. 

The great difficulty in the way of the arrange- 
ment now proposed, is the article of the constitu- 



95 



tion requiring the surrender and return of fugitive 
slaves. A State, obeying this, seems to me to con- 
tract as great guilt as if it were to bring slaves from 
Africa. No man, who regards slavery as among the 
greatest wrongs, can in any way reduce his fellow 
creatures to it. The flying slave asserts the first 
right of a man, and should meet aid rather than 
obstruction. Who that has the heart of a freeman, 
or breathes the love of a Christian, can send him 
back to his chain ? On this point, however, the 
difficulty of an arrangement is every day growing 
less. This provision of the constitution is under- 
going a silent repeal, and no human power can 
sustain it. Just in proportion as slavery becomes 
the object of conscientious reprobation in the free 
States, just so fast the difficulty of sending back the 
fugitive increases. In the part of the country where 
I reside, it is next to impossible that the slave, who 
has reached us, should be restored to bondage. Not 
that our courts of law are obstructed ; not that 
mobs would rescue the fugitive from the magistrate. 
We respect the public authorities. Not an arm 
would be raised against the officers of justice. But 
what are laws against the moral sense of a commu- 
nity ? No man among us, who values his character, 
would aid the slave hunter. The slave hunter here 
would be looked on with as little favor as the feloni- 
ous slave trader. Those among us, who dread to 



96 



touch slavery in its own region, lest insurrection and 
tumults should follow change, still feel, that the fugi- 
tive who has sought shelter so far, can breed no 
tumult in the land which he has left, and that, of 
consequence, no motive but the unhallowed love of 
gain can prompt to his pursuit ; and when they 
think of slavery as perpetuated, not for public order, 
but for gain, they abhor it, and would not lift a 
finger to replace the flying bondsman beneath the 
yoke. Thus this provision of the constitution is 
virtually fading away ; and, as I have said, no 
human power can restore it. The moral sentiment 
of a community is not to be withstood. Make as 
many constitutions as you will ; fence round your 
laws with what penalties you will, the universal 
conscience makes them as weak as the threats of 
childhood. There is a spirit spreading through the 
country in regard to slavery, which demands changes 
of the constitution, and which will master if it can- 
not change it. No concerted opposition to this instru- 
ment is thought of or is needed. No secret under- 
standing among our citizens is to be feared at the 
South. The simple presence to their minds of the 
great truth, that man cannot rightfully be the pro- 
perty of man, is enough to shelter the slave. With 
this conviction we are palsy-stricken, when called 
upon to restore him to bondage. Our sinews are 
relaxed ; our hands hang down ; our limbs will not 



97 



carry us a step. Now this conviction is spreading, 
and will become the established principle of the 
free States. Politicians, indeed, to answer a party 
end, may talk of property in man, as something 
established or not to be questioned ; but the people at 
large do not follow them. The people go with the civ- 
ilized and Christian world. The South should un- 
derstand this, should look the difficulty in the face ; 
and they will see that, from the nature of the case, 
resistance is idle, that neither policy nor violence 
can avail. And, what is more, they have no right 
to reproach us with letting this provision of the 
constitution die among us. They have done worse. 
We are passive. They have actively, openly, fla- 
grantly violated the constitution. They have passed 
laws, threatening to imprison and punish the free 
colored citizens of the North for exercising the 
rights guaranteed to every citizen by the national 
compact, i. e. for setting foot on their shores and 
using their highways. This wrong has been too 
patiently borne ; and in one way we can turn it to 
good account. When reproached with unfaithful- 
ness to the constitution, we can hold it up as our 
shield, and cite the greater disloyalty of the South 
as an extenuation of our own. 

It is best, however, that neither party should be 
unfaithful. It is best that both, enlightened as to 
the spirit of our times, should make new arrange- 
9 



ments to prevent collision, to define the duties of 
each and all, to bring the constitution into harmony 
with the moral convictions and with the safety of 
North and South. Until some such arrangements 
are made, perpetual collisions between the two great 
sections of our country must occur. Notwithstand- 
ing the tendencies to a low tone of thought and feel- 
ing at the North in regard to slavery, there is a 
decided increase of moral sensibility on the subject ; 
and in proportion as this shall spread, the free States 
will insist more strenuously on being released from 
every obligation to give support to what they delib- 
erately condemn. 

This liberation of the free States from all connec- 
tion with and action on slavery, would indeed be an 
immense boon, and the removal of much dissension. 
Still, the root of bitterness would remain among us. 
Still, our union, that inestimable political good, will be 
insecure. Slavery, whilst it continues, must secretly, 
if not openly, mix with our policy, sow jealousies, 
determine the character of parties, and create, if 
not diversities of interests, at least suspicions of them, 
which may prove not a whit the less ruinous, be- 
cause groundless. 

Slavery is unfriendly to union, as it is directly 
hostile to the fundamental principle on which all our 
institutions rest. No nation can admit an element 
at war with its vital, central law, without losing some- 



99 



thing of its stability. The idea of Human Rights is 
the grand distinction of our country. Our chief 
boast as a people is found in the fact, that the toils, 
sacrifices, heroic deeds of our fathers, had for their 
end the establishment of these. Here is the unity 
which sums up our history, the glory which lights 
up our land, the chief foundation of the sentiment 
of loyalty, the chief spring of national feeling, the 
grand bond of national union ; and whatever among 
us is at war with this principle, weakens the living 
force which holds us together. 

On this topic I cannot enlarge. But recent 
events compel me to refer to one influence more, 
by which slavery is unfriendly to union. It aggra- 
vates those traits of character at the South, which 
tend to division. It 'xnZ.v.nes that proud, fiery spirit, 
which is quick to take offence, and which rushes 
into rash and reckless courses. This ungoverned 
violence of feeling breaks out especially in Con- 
gress, the centre from which impulses are communi- 
cated to the whole people. It is a painful thought, 
that if any spot in the country is pre-eminent for 
rudeness and fierceness, it is the Hall of Representa- 
tives. Too many of our legislators seem to lay 
down at its door the common restraints of good 
society and the character of gentlemen. The na- 
tional chamber seems liable to become a national 
nuisance ; and, although all parts of the country 



100 



are in a measure responsible for this wound inflicted 
on the honor and union of the country, we do feel, 
that tlie evil is to be imputed chiefly to the proud, 
impetuous temper of the South. It is believed, that 
the personal violences, which, if repeated, will re- 
duce the national council to the level of a boxing 
match, may be traced to that part of the country. 
This evil is too notorious to be softened down by 
apologies or explanations ; nor is it less an evil 
because precedents and parallels can be found in 
the legislative bodies of France and England. It 
tends not merely to spread barbarism through the 
community, but to impair the authority of legisla- 
tion, to give new ferocity to the conflicts of party, 
and thus to weaken the national tie. 

If slavery, that brand of discord, were taken away, 
the peculiarities of Northern and Southern charac- 
ter would threaten little or no evil to the Union. 
On the contrary, these two grand divisions of the 
country, now estranged from each other, would be 
brought near, and, by acting on and modifying one 
another, would produce a national character of the 
highest order. The South, with more of ardor and 
of bold and rapid genius, and the North, with more 
of wisdom and steady principle, furnish admirable 
materials for a State. Nor is the union of these to 
a considerable degree impracticable. It is worthy 
of remark, that the most eminent men at the South 



101 



have had a large infusion of the Northern character. 
Washington, in his cahii dignity, his rigid order, his 
close attention to business, his reserve almost ap- 
proaching coldness, bore a striking affinity to the 
North ; and his sympathies led him to choose North- 
ern men very much as his confidential friends. Mr. 
Madison had much of the calm wisdom, the patient, 
studious research, the exactness and quiet manner 
of our part of the country, with little of the imagi- 
nation and fervor of his own. Chief Justice Mar- 
shall had more, than these two great men, of the 
genial unreserved character of a warmer climate, 
but so blended with a spirit of moderation, and clear 
judgment, and serene wisdom, as to make him the 
delight and confidence of the whole land. There is 
one other distinguished name of the South, which I 
have not mentioned, Mr. Jefferson ; and the reason 
is, that his character seemed to belong to neither 
section of the country. He wanted the fiery, daring 
spirit of the South, and the calm energy of the 
North. He stood alone. He was a man of genius, 
given to bold, original, and somewhat visionary 
speculation, and at the same time, a sagacious ob- 
server of men and events. He owed his vast influ- 
ence, second only to Washington's, to his keen in- 
sight into the character of his countrymen and into 
the spirit of his age. His o])ponents have set him 

down as the most unscrupulous of politicians ; but 
9* 



102 



one merit, and no mean one, must be accorded to 
him, that of having adopted early, and of having 
held fast through life, the most generous theory of 
Human Rights, and of having protested against sla- 
very, as an aggravated wrong. In truth, it is impos- 
sible to study the great men of the South, and to 
consider the force of intellect and character which 
that region has developed, without feelings of res- 
pect, and without the most ardent desire that it may 
free itself by any means from an institution, which 
aggravates what is evil and threatening in its char- 
acter, which cripples it of much of its energy, which 
cuts it off from the sympathies and honor of the civ- 
ilized world, and which prevents it from a true cor- 
dial union with the rest of the country. It is slavery 
which prevents the two sections of country from act- 
ing on and modifying each other for the good of both. 
This is the great gulph between us, and constantly 
growing wider and deeper in proportion to the spread 
of moral feeling, of Christian philanthropy, of res- 
pect for men's rights, of interest in the oppressed. 

Why is it, that slavery is not thrown off? We 
here ascribe its continuance very much to cupidity 
and love of power. But there is another cause 
■which is certainly disappearing. Slavery at the South 
continues, in part, in consequence of that want of ac- 
tivity, of steady force, of resolute industry among the 
free white population, which it has itself produced. A 



103 



people with force enough to attempt a social revo- 
lution, and to bear its first inconveniences, would 
not endure slavery. We of the North, with our 
characteristic energy, would hardly tolerate it a 
year. The sluggishness, stupidity of the slaves would 
keep us in perpetual irritation. We should run 
over them, tread them almost unconsciously under 
foot, in our haste and eagerness to accomplish our 
enterprizes. We should feel the wastefulness of 
slave labor, in comparison with free. The clumsy 
mechanic, the lagging house-servant, the slovenly 
laborer ever ready with a lying excuse, would be 
too much for our patience. Now there is reason to 
think, that the stirring, earnest, industrious spirit of 
the North, is finding its way Southward ; and with 
this, a desire to introduce better social relations can 
hardly be repressed. 

We believe, too, that this revolution would be 
hastened, if the South would open its ear to the 
working of Emancipation in other countries, and to 
the deep interest in the African race which is now 
spreading through the world. On these subjects very 
little is yet known at the South. The newspapers 
there spread absurd rumors of the failure of the ex- 
periment of the West Indies, but the truth finds no 
organs. We doubt, too, whether one newspaper 
has even made a reference to the recent public meet- 
ing in England for the civilization of Africa, the 



102 



one merit, and no mean one, must be accorded to 
him, that of having adopted early, and of having 
held fast through life, the most generous theory of 
Human Rights, and of having protested against sla- 
very, as an aggravated wrong. In truth, it is impos- 
sible to study the great men of the South, and to 
consider the force of intellect and character which 
that region has developed, without feelings of res- 
pect, and without the most ardent desire that it may 
free itself by any means from an institution, which 
aggravates what is evil and threatening in its char- 
acter, which cripples it of much of its energy, which 
cuts it off from the sympathies and honor of the civ- 
ilized world, and which prevents it from a true cor- 
dial union with the rest of the country. It is slavery 
which prevents the two sections of country from act- 
ing on and modifying each other for the good of both. 
This is the great gulph between us, and constantly 
growing wider and deeper in proportion to the spread 
of moral feeling, of Christian philanthropy, of res- 
pect for men's rights, of interest in the oppressed. 

Why is it, that slavery is not thrown off? We 
here ascribe its continuance very much to cupidity 
and love of power. But there is another cause 
which is certainly disappearing. Slavery at the South 
continues, in part, in consequence of that want of ac- 
tivity, of steady force, of resolute industry among the 
free white population, which it has itself produced. A 



103 



people with force enough to attempt a social revo- 
lution, and to bear its first inconveniences, would 
not endure slavery. We of the North, with our 
characteristic energy, would hardly tolerate it a 
year. The sluggishness, stupidity of the slaves would 
keep us in perpetual irritation. We should run 
over them, tread them almost unconsciously under 
foot, in our haste and eagerness to accomplish our 
enterprizcs. We should feel the wastefulness of 
slave labor, in comparison with free. The clumsy 
mechanic, the lagging house-servant, the slovenly 
laborer ever ready with a lying excuse, would be 
too much for our patience. Now there is reason to 
think, that the stirring, earnest, industrious spirit of 
the North, is finding its way Southward ; and with 
this, a desire to introduce better social relations can 
hardly be repressed. 

We believe, too, that this revolution would be 
hastened, if the South would open its ear to the 
working of Emancipation in other countries, and to 
the deep interest in the African race which is now 
spreading through the world. On these subjects very 
little is yet known at the South. The newspapers 
there spread absurd rumors of the failure of the ex- 
periment of the West Indies, but the truth finds no 
organs. We doubt, too, whether one newspaper 
has even made a reference to the recent public meet- 
ing in England for the civilization of Africa, the 



106 



tlce and evils of this institution, and to the evidence 
of the benefits of Emancipation ; and if so, then the 
weight of guilt on this nation is great, and increasing. 
Our fathers carried on slavery in much blindness. 
They lived and walked under the shadow of a dark 
and bloody past. But the darkness is gone. The 
" mystery of iniquity" is now laid open. Slavery, 
from its birth to its last stage, is now brought to 
light. The wars, the sacked and burning villages, 
the kidnapping and murders of Africa, which begin 
this horrible history ; the crowded hold, the chains, 
stench, suffocation, burning thirst, and agonies of the 
slave ship ; the loathsome diseases and enormous 
waste of life in the middle passage ; the wrongs and 
sufferings of the plantation, with its reign of terror 
and force, its unbridled lust, its violations of domestic 
rights and charities — these all are revealed. The 
crimes and woes of slavery come to us in moans and 
shrieks from the old world and the new, and from 
the ocean which divides them ; and we are distinct- 
ly taught, that in no other calamity are such wrongs 
and miseries concentrated as in this. To put an 
end to some of these woes, the most powerful nations 
have endeavored, by force of laws and punish- 
ments, to abolish the slave trade ; but the trial has 
proved, that, while slavery endures, the traffic which 
ministers to it cannot be suppressed. At length the 
axe has been laid at the root of the accursed tree. 



107 



By the act of a great nation nearly a million of 
slaves have been Emancipated ; and the first results 
have exceeded the hopes of philanthropy. All this 
history of slavery is given to the world. The truth 
is brought to our very doors. And, still more, to us, 
above all people, God has made known those eternal 
principles of freedom, justice, and humanity, by which 
the full enormity of slavery may be comprehended. 
To shut our eyes against all this light ; to shut our 
ears and hearts against these monitions of God, these 
pleadings of humanity ; to stand forth, in this great 
conflict of good with evil, as the chief upholders of 
oppression ; to array ourselves against the efforts of 
the Christian and civilized world for the extinction 
of this greatest wrong ; to perpetuate it with obstinate 
madness where it exists, and to make new regions of 
the earth groan under its woes — this, surely, is a guilt 
which the justice of God cannot wink at, and on 
which insulted humanity, religion^ and freedom call 
down fearful retribution. 



NOTE— page 00. 

On this page 1 have spoken of the manner in 
which the slaves in the West Indies received Eman- 
cipation. This great event took place on the first of 
August, 1S34. The following account of the manner 
in which the preceding night was kept, is extracted 
from Thome and Kimball's book on the subject. 

" The Wesleyans kept ' watch-night ' in all their 
chapels on the night of the 3Ist July. One of the 
Wesleyan missionaries gave us an account of the 
watch meeting at the chapel in St. John's. The spa- 
cious house was filled with the candidates for liberty. 
All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus 
of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, and 
as they united in prayer, the voice of the leader was 
drowned in the universal acclamation of thanksgiv- 
ing, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and glor}', to 
God, who had come down for their deliverance. In 
such exercises the evening was spent until the hour 
of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed 
that when the clock on the cathedral should begin to 
strike, the Avhole congregation should fall upon their 
knees and receive the boon of freedom in silence. 
Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first note, the 
immense assembly fell prostrate on their knees. All 
was silence, save the quivering half-stifled breath of 
the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the clock 
fell upon the multitude ; peal on peal, peal on peal, 
rolled over the prostrate throng, in tones of angels^ 
voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary 
heart-strings. Scarce had the clock sounded its last 
note, when the lightning flashed vividly around, and 
a loud peal of thunder roared along the sky — God's 
pillar of fire, and trump of jubilee! A moment of 
profoundest silence passed — then came the burst — they 
broke forth in prayer ; they shouted, they sung, ' Glo- 
ry,' ' alleluia ;' they clapped their hands, leaped up, 
fell down, clasped each other in their Uee arms, cri- 



JIO 



ed, laughed, and went to and fro, tossing upward 
their unfettered hands; but hi-h above the whole 
there was a mighty souud which ever and anon 
swelled up ; it was the utterings in broken negro dia- 
lect, of gratitude to God. 

" After this gush of excitement had spent itself and 
the congregation became calm, the religious exer- 
cises were resumed, and the remainder of the niVht 
was occupied in singing and prayer, in reading the 
Jiible, and m addresses from the missionaries ex- 
plaining the nature of the freedom just received,'and 
exhorting the free people to be industrious, steady, 
obedient to the laws, and to show themselves in all 
things wor'hy of the high boon which God had con- 
ferred upon them." 



NOTE— page 63. 

On reading to a friend my remarks on the African 
character, he observed to me, that similar views had 
been taken by Alexander Kinmont, in his " Lectures 
on Man : Cincinnati, 1839." This induced me to 
examine the lectures, and I had the satisfaction of find- 
ing not only a coincidence of opinions, but that the 
author had pursued the subject much more thorough- 
ly and illustrated it with much strength and beauty. 
I would recommend this work to such as delight in 
bold and original thinking. The reader, indeed, will 
often question the soundness of the author's conclu- 
sions ; but even in these cases, the mind will be 
waked up to great and interesting subjects of reflec- 
tion. I will subjoin a few extracts relating to the Af- 
rican character. 

" When the epoch of the civilization of the Negro 
family arrives, in the lapse of ages, they will display 
in their native land some very peculiar and interest- 
ing traits of character, of which we, a distinct branch 
of the human family, can at present form no concep- 
tion. It will be, — indeed it must be, — a civilization 



Ill 



of a peculiar stamp ; perhaps, we might venture to 
conjecture, not so much distinguished by art as a cer- 
tain beautiful nature, not so marked or adorned by 
science, as exalted and refined by a new and lovely 
theolocr'y ;— a refieclion of the light of heaven, more 
perfect and endearing than that which the intellects 
of the Caucasian race have ever yet exhibited. There 
is more of the child, of unsophisticated nature, in the 
Netrro race than in the European."— p. 190. 

"'The peninsula of Africa is the home bf. the JNe- 
gro and the appropriate and destined seat of his fu- 
ture glory and civilization,— a civilization which we 
need not" fear to predict will be as distinct in all Us 
features from that of all other races, as hift . complex- 
ion and natural temperament and genius are diflercnt. 
But who can doubt that here, also, humanity in its 
more advanced and millenial stage will reflect, under 
a sweet and mellow light, the softer attributes of the 
divine beneficence. If the Caucasian race is des- 
tined as would appear from the precocity of th:ir ge- 
nius and their natural quickness and extreme aptitude 
to the arts, to reflect the lustre of the divine wisdom, 
or to speak more properly, the divine science, shall 
we envy the Negro if a later but far nobler civiliza- 
tion await him,— to return the splendor of the divine 
attributes of mercy and benevolence in the practice 
id exhibition of all the milder and gentler virtues ?" 



an( 



—p. 191. ^ . , 

" If there are fewer vivid manifestations of intel- 
lect in the Negro family than in the Caucasian, as I 
am disposed to believe, "does that forbid the hope of 
the return of that pure and gentle state of society 
among them which attracts the peculiar regard of 
heaven?"— p. 192. 

" The sweeter graces of the Christian religion ap- 
pear almost too tropical and tender plants to grow 
in the soil of the Caucasian mind ; they require a 
character of human nature, of which you can see the 
rude lineaments in the Ethiopian, to be implanted in 
and grow naturally and beautifully withal."— p. 218. 



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